The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

poolish

baybakin's picture
baybakin

Living in San Diego for school, I gained a love for the little rolls brought from the local panaderia down the street.  Like little mini batards, pulled from the oven and placed in bins alongside racks of pan dulces.  Alas, here in the oakland hills the closest panaderia is a 15-20 minute drive away, and the bolillos just aren't quite like the ones I used to get in San Diego.

Most of the recipies I've seen are straight-dough, and being that I can't leave well enough alone, I have developed the following recipe, based off of the Poolish Baguettes in Hamelman's Bread.  The percentages of fat and sugar are from a bakery near mexico city (I don't remember quite where).

Poolish:
166g Flour
166g Water
Pinch of yeast (less than 1/8 tsp)

Let poolish sit overnight or at least 8 hours, untill poolish begins to pucker in the middle.

Final Dough:
All of the Poolish
334g Flour
164g Water
15g Fat (Lard or shortning)
10g Salt
10g Sugar (unrefined cane or honey)
2g instant yeast

Mix everything but the salt together into a shaggy mass.  Let autolysis for at least 20 mins.  Add salt and kneed dough untill it passes a windowpane test.  Let rise until doubled.  Divide into 6-8 pieces, preshape into rounds and let bench rest for 10 mins.  Shape into ovals and place into a floured couche like you would for baguettes.  Preheat oven to 500F at least 45 minutes before baking.  Slash bolillos once lengthwise and place into oven. Bake for 5 mins with steam at 500F then turn down oven to 450F for 10 mins (or untill a dark hazlenut color is achieved).  Remove breads and let cool (if you can).  Enjoy with some avocado, pickled jalapenos, ham, and farmers cheese, or just with some butter.

 

Bread behind is some oakland sourdough, made with Central Milling's type 70 high extraction flour.

 

Leandro Di Lorenzo's picture
Leandro Di Lorenzo

Hey, I don't post as much as i should here, but I'm excited about the new way of steaming, at least for me, that I used today!

First, I'm from Brazil, so sorry for some misspell or something :)

I was looking for a better way to create steam for bread baking, than I came up with a photo (on thefreshloaf) of a pressure cooker connect to the oven (eletric) by a tube, I didn't even know that a eletric oven has a tube on top by the stove, and then I said to myself " what the heck, let me try this!"

I decided to bake a regular poolish dough.

Total flour: 400g

Pre fermented flour: 150g + 150g of H2O

I started with 65% hydration, but I had to add a bit more H2O maybe 68 or 69% total, got a really old flour (KAAP)

2% Salt

A bit of yeast

Only thing I did different. I mixed The poolish flour H2O, yeast and a bit more malt than normal and let it rest for maybe 2.5 hours, I went to the gym rsrs.

After this period, added the salt and a tiny amount of ascorbic acid. I can only bake batards on my oven, so I can use a little more strength.

Then kneaded just enough, let it ferment for 1:30 min with a turn (45 min), divided, pre shaped shaped proof and bake. ufff!!!

But I'm getting out of track... Wanna talk about the steam!!! Hahaha

The bakeing took 27 min. total

Here is a photo of my new steaming method

I steamed the oven before, don't know why cos when I opened the oven door all the steam came out lol, and after loading.

And for 15 sec in one minute intervals for 10 min.

After that let it bake for more 10 min, turn the bread and more 7 min in the oven, maybe a bit much, it burned the bottom :(

I loved the results!!!

Check it out!! Some pics...

 

  

  

I think is the first time than I bake with steam instead of vapor. I mean, I tried before with hot water, but I don't know if is the same, cos here I'm using the steamer.

I tried to show some cracks on the crust, I don't know if you can see it on the pics.

I think is worth trying, I will again tomorrow, with a bit of rye on the poolish ;) ....

So that's it!!! Hope you like it!!! Happy baking!!!! =)

BTW One last photo...

That's the layout inside my oven!!!

Regards,

Leandro Di Lorenzo

 

 

 

javajavabug's picture

Biga to Dough Ratio

April 17, 2012 - 7:20am -- javajavabug

I was wondering, is there was a perfect biga to dough ratio?

I made an Italian bread, not ciabatta, and I felt like there might have been too much biga in it. In the recipe I used, the biga weighed 17 ounces, a little over half of the weight of the entire bread. The bread was overly chewy and a bit tough. I don't think I over kneaded it either. 

Is there a rule of thumb I should follow when making a bread with a biga?

Thanks so much! 

smoke signals's picture
smoke signals

Earlier this week I had a dream about ham & cheese on baguette. Since this was a dream that I could turn into reality, I took up the task of making some baguettes. So many dreams just stay dreams, when you have one within reach: grab it.

I turned to Jeffery Hamelman’s book, Bread, and to an old bakery formula I had from years ago working as a baguette mixer at Red Hen. Pretty strait forward, poolish recipe. But how awesome simple formulas can be! To my delight these baguettes crackled, and tasted like butter and nuts and wheat. It was hard to bake them long enough because I kept wanting to pull them out of and eat them in one, huge bite. 

Dear Baguette,

I am sorry we were apart for so long. I took you for granted. One day you just weren’t there anymore. Maybe the separation did us both some good. I’ve moved a couple of times, have a new boyfriend, in general, things are progressing. But maybe we could think about spending some time together again. I really love the way you smell.

Yours Truly, Smoke Signals  

   

    

    

    

jarkkolaine's picture
jarkkolaine

Greetings from Finland!

After years of reading your posts (and drooling over your tasty and beautiful loaves) for inspiration, I thought I'd start my own blog here too. During the days I'm a stay-at-home dad exploring life with my two boys (ages 4.6 and 2 :)). The rest of my time, mostly when my family is asleep, I try to split between baking, writing and some other creative experiments. And browsing The Fresh Loaf.

--

In the past summer, I managed to spoil my starter by not refreshing it during the summer vacation as we were traveling around Finland. Ever since, I have been making breads with yeast, procrastinating with the idea of training a new starter. The Ale and Yeast Poolish recipe from Richard Bertinet's Crust has become my current favorite bread.

Today, once again, I made a batch: I usually follow the recipe as printed, except that for baking, I use a cast-iron frying pan covered with a clay pot for the first twenty minutes -- my cheap version of a dutch oven. To fit the breads in the pan, I divide the dough in four pieces instead of the two instructed in the book, and shape the dough into boules instead of batards.

Here's how it looked this time:

 

CBFindlay's picture

Poolish vs whole dough overnight fermenting

January 9, 2012 - 7:06pm -- CBFindlay

What is the end difference between using a poolish, or portion of the dough fermented overnight, vs. letting the whole loaf sit overnight? In an Italian bread baking class I took the teacher leaves his whole batch just sitting overnight at room temp in a bucket.

Do you just get a stronger flavor that way?

Do the two methods affect texture?

C B Findlay

booch221's picture

I stopped using a poolish and still get great flavor

November 27, 2011 - 10:55pm -- booch221
Forums: 

I've always used a poolish for my no knead bread recipe. It called for one cup of APF and 6 oz of water and 1/8 teaspoon of  instant yeast. I would let it ferment over night and then mix it with 7 oz of bread flour, 2 oz semolina flour, 1-1/4 teaspoons of salt, 4 oz water, and another 1/8 teaspoon of yeast. I would let this triple in size (5-6 hours) and then refrigerate it overnight before baking. 

This takes a long time but makes a great smelling and tasty loaf of bread.

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