poolish

The past 2 years we have been making an Easter Babka and this year the GMA’s decided to make it their Easter Bake (along with Hot Cross Buns), so naturally, we had to join them  for the Babka Rhamma Dhamma.  Ca't wat to see their Easter Babka Bakes!

This year we decided to do the traditional 2 sided roll up and then do a Twisted Sisters twist of the double roll.   We made the dough without the pumpkin pie spices to try to get a more chocolate flavor coming through and now consider the spices ‘optional’.

Once again we used our trusty Bundt pan to contain things and give the top a decorative look.  We increased the size of the bake to fill the Bundt pan up to maximum capacity, and a little more, since this Polish and Russian inspired babka is so tasty and goes so fast.

Like last year, we used walnuts, cocoa, chocolate chips and bourbon snockered fruits for the filling, dropped the pie spices but added brown sugar to this year’s roll up and add in goodies.  We did increase all of them to account for the larger babka.  We kept the streusel topping on the top and bottom of the loaf for the nice crunch and we kept the vanilla, powdered sugar milk glaze for the top.  This year we added a dusting of powdered sugar too.

This year, instead of just yeast water making the dough rise, we added in a large poolish too.  Each was  brought to peak, fed again and then refrigerated for 2 days.  We let the levains double on the counter after removing them from the fridge - about 4 hours.

We re-hydrated non fat dry milk powder for the dough liquid and used it to autolyse the dough dry ingredients for an hour.  After mixing in the levains with a spoon we did 10 minutes of slap and folds to get the gluten developed, before allowing the dough to rest for 15 minutes.

We did 2 sets of S&F’s, on 30 minute intervals, to develop the dough further.  After another 15 minute rest we rolled out the dough a little less than ½” thick and into a huge rectangle 24” x 36”.  Half the butter in the formula is in the dough and the other half is softened and schmeared onto the rolled out dough before the rest of the fillings go in.  After sprinkling on the fillings in an even layer, then roll it up, from each wide side, meeting in the middle.

The starting in the middle, twist the roll toward each end to get the Twisted Sister part of the design.  The roll will get longer but no worries, you need the length to get around the Bundt pan twice.   Spray the pan liberally so nothing will stick, place half the streusel in the bottom of the pan and then coil in the Twisted Sister going around twice and ending where you began to ensure that the babka stays level as it rises.

Sprinkle the top with the rest of the streusel cover with oiled plastic and allow to proof on the counter for 1 hour before refrigerating overnight.   In the morning allow the babka to come to room temperature and finish proofing 1” above the rim of the pan.  Fire up the oven to 350 F convection and bake until golden brown and the inside temperature reaches 205 F - about 55 minutes.  Rotate the pan every 10 minutes to ensure even browning.

Remove pan to a cooling rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes before un-molding.  I run a paring knife around the outside and inside to make sure the babka comes away clean.  After 5 more minutes of cooling drizzle the vanilla glaze over the top and dust with powdered sugar.  Eat at least one slice while still warm otherwise warm up I the micro wave before serving.

This is a real Easter treat!  We love this for breakfast, brunch or dinner desert!  Nothing is overpowering or too sweet and the lack of PP spices really let the chocolate and walnuts shine through.

Happy Easter !

Formula

I can put the board on the left of the sink.

Tones of space for my baguettes dough

'French style' flour. But that flour is SOOOOOO expensive!

Hope you like my first post on TFL !!!

I've been experimenting with a 3-day ferment using a biga/poolish (what ever you call it) and finally have some loaves that are approaching what I'm looking for.

Unlike the folks who are looking for "lighter, fluffier" bread, we like nice chewy bread with body and flavor. I've been playing around with Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast, and here's what I've come up with.

(Sorry for the fuzzy iPhone quality, but you get the idea...)

Formula and processes:

Step 1 - Night of Day 1

500 gr unbleached white all purpose flour - Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill
340 gr water
1/2 tsp dry yeast

Mix together well in large bowl, cover and let rise on the counter until morning.

Step 2 - Morning of Day 2

250 gr whole wheat bread flour, fine grind - Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill
230 gr water

Add the water to the previous day's mixture, in the same bowl, blending in well. Then add the flour and mix completly.

Cover the bowl and let rise all day on the counter.

Step 3 - Evening of Day 2

Fold the biga over itself several times to de-gas, cover and put in the refrigerator over  night.

Step 4 - Morning of Day 3

250 gr whole wheat bread flour, fine grind - Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill
230 gr water
1 tbs salt
1 tsp dry yeast

Remove the biga from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature - about 3 hours

To make final dough, whisk the salt into the flour and dissolve the yeast in the water.
Blend the yeast water with the biga, mixing completely. Then mix the flour/salt mixture with the biga to make the final dough.

The dough is plenty sticky, and I use flour to manage my stretch and folds. In this case, 4 stretch and folds 8 minutes apart seems to work fine.

Bulk rise: 2 - 3 hours, depending on room temperature - should double in volume.

Shape into 2 boules, set rounds aside on parchement paper and cover them lightly with plastic wrap. Let rise approximately 1 1/2 hours.

Oven temperature: 500 F

Place baking stone in the oven and turn the oven on to preheat 60 minutes before baking time. Place broiler tray on shelf below baking stone to heat for steaming.

I have a small-ish oven and baking stone so I have to bake these one at a time.

Slide the loaf - on the parchement paper - onto the baking stone. Pour 1 Cup of water in the broiler pan for steam and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the parchement paper after 15 minutes.

Bake the second loave the same way.

Let cool on a rack.

Yummy!

This chacon is a tribute to Eric Hanner.  His gifts to the world were many and his passion for balking was great.  His fine character attributes included his generosity that made him willing to help and teach others what he knew.  Eric’s legacies are many and this bake commemorates them.  He was a giant and this chacon is especially large to recognize his largess.

The white portion of the dough is a 6 strand zolablue SD Challah that we converted to a poolish from SD.  The 4 braided ends were not tucked in to give the chacon more of chance to crack making a pretty design on the top.

The dark portion is Eric’s Favorite SD Rye – his Jewish Deli Rye was used as a monster bialy to cover the braids of the challah in the bottom of the basket.  This is the largest bialy we have ever attempted and flipping it over was sight to be seen.

The 5 recipe changes I made to Eric's Favorite were minor ones.  First one was to use 95 g of the challah poolish in place of yeast in Eric’s dough.  We only had 2.5 g of caraway so I added a like amount of coriander.  We added 1 g each of red and white rye malts to improve enzymatic action, the rye flavor and color – while Eric wasn't looking.

My apprentice used caramelized onions and the water from it and the deglazed pan instead of re-hydrating minced onions as Eric recommended.  The flavor and color of caramelized onion should make this as exciting as Eric wrote about using onion and the water from it in this bread.  He wanted everyone to give this option a go!

I also didn’t have any first clear flour and have never seen any, so we tried to replicate it using David Snyder’s ideas on how to do so from another thread by using some WW mixed with AP and bread flour.  We don’t know what it should look like but David’s advice is usually spot on.  I don’t think Eric would have minded theses changes.

Method changes included using French slap and folds for both of the breads - for about 12 minutes.  Eric’s Favorite Rye was a two slaps and one fold process since the dough was so stiff and required the extra slap to stretch it out enough to fold over.  Eric was the one who got me doing French slap and folds and my breads have been greatly improved as a result.

2 sets of (4) S&Fs were also performed on 30 minute intervals for the first hour of development and then the dough was rested for an hour.  After shaping and putting the dough in the rice floured basket ,we let it proof for an hour before putting it into the fridge for a 15 hour retard.

This is not part of Eric’s method but we just ran out of time to bake it off and this was the best we could manage.  We fired up Old Betsy to preheat at 450 F with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans and a 12” iron skillet with lava rocks inside like David Snyder  sort of uses- while the dough warmed upon the counter for 40 minutes.  This is huge lump of dough, 3.8 pounds of it and it need lots of steam.

Once the dough went in and we threw a half a cup of water on the lava rocks as we shut the door and turned the temperature down to 370 F.  We decided to steam for 20 minutes instead of 10.  At the 10 minute mark the cracks had barely opened on the huge loaf and more steam was needed.

At the 20 minute mark, the steam was removed and the bread continued to bake at 370 F, convection this time, for an additional 26 minutes rotating it 70 degrees every 7 minutes until it registered 190 F in the center.  We left it on the stone for another 10 minutes with oven off and door ajar to crisp the skin before removing it to a cooling rack.

It browned up a dark mahogany color that was so nice I decided not to coat it with the corn starch and water mix.  Even the challah portion was the same color.  It blistered very well on the challah portion but not on the rye side for some reason?

It bloomed while cracking beautifully and at least looks the fitting tribute to Eric that we had hoped to achieve - at least on the outside.  Well, coundn't wait 24 hours to cut into it since showed promise and smelled tantalizing.  The crumb was soft nice and moist and medium open especially on the rye side. 

The taste would be straight Jekyll if there wasn't a Hyde Side.  One bite is a fine Jewish Rye with subtle caraway and coriander hints, the next a straight Shabot Challah and then comes a half and half combo bite.

Here are the formulas should you want to make a Chacon for Eric.  I sure enjoyed doing so and we learned much from this baking experience. It was great time to reflect, day dream a little and think about the past, present and future.

The sunset was very niuce the day we baked this bread.  I think someone really important knew a nice one for Eric was in order.

Eric’s Jewish Deli Rye – Eric’s Favorite Rye