VIII - Hamelinet Poolish Baguette : My Regular Baguette Formula
I know.....It's really reckless of me to blog about my miiiiiles-away-from-perfect-looking baguette soon after Jay (Longhorn)'s wonderful report on SFBI course with the picture of his great looking baguettes. But I'd already finished writing this up last night and didn't know he'd do such a thing while I was sleeping..... Oh well......:p
As many of you may think I’m turning into a broken record know, now I’ve got 6 bags of real, authentic French T55 and T65 flour in my hand which my daughter brought back from Paris for me, this is going to be the last blog about my poolish baguette with improvised UK flours for a while, I think. Just to show you what my regular baguette usually looks like.
(Never mind the bent tip. It caught on the hot baking stone when loading….::sigh::)
The formula is loosely based upon Hamelman’s Pain Rustique with Poolish (uses 50% of flour for poolish) and Richard Bertinet’s Poolish baguette (adds small amount of rye to poolish), hence the name, ‘Hamelinet Poolish Baguette.’ With those combination of flours, I added small amount of WW and wheatgerm to emulate French flour which is higher in ash than typical flour in UK, and also introduced TFL’s Gold Stamp cold retardation in the fridge for extra improvement in flavour and texture. So, basically it’s a mish-mash of ideas and tips I’ve picked up along my never-ending, long journey in search for MY ultimate baguette from home oven…in England.
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Hamelinet Poolish Baguette with Cold Retardation
INGREDIENTS (makes 2 x 40cm mini-baguettes)
Poolish – Flour (total) 125g …. Strong 115g
Rye 10g
Instant dry yeast 0.2g
Water 125g
Main Dough - Flour (total) 135g ….. WW 10g
Strong 85g
Plain 40g
Wheatgerm 1/2 tbls
Instant dry yeast 0.6g
Good quality sea salt 5g
Water 60g
METHOD
- Mix all the ingredients for poolish and ferment at room temperature until it peaks. (6-7 hrs @ 22C)
- When the poolish reaches its peak, add all the ingredients for the main dough and mix to a shaggy mess.
- Autolyse for 30 minutes. (or 20 minutes if it’s a warm day)
- After the autolyse, S & F in the bowl. (6-8 x S & F as you turn the bowl once). Rest for 20-30 minutes.
- Another S & F in the bowl.
- Cover the bowl and cold retard in a fridge for 21 hrs.
- After 21 hrs (you should see a few large air pockets just below the surface of the dough), take out from the fridge and leave for 30+ minutes. The dough does not need to return to room temperature.
- Turn out the dough and divide into two equal pieces. Pre-shape (just one letter folds) and rest for 10-20 minutes, depending upon room temperature. Be careful the dough doesn’t’ ferment too much at this stage.
- Shape into baguette and proof between the cloche. Pre-heat the oven @ 240-250C with a baking stone and a tray filled with pebbles/lava rocks.
- Just before the dough is ready, put a heat-resistant deep dish with boiling water in the oven to ‘condition’ the oven. (Note : If necessary, uncover the couche to dry the surface of the dough in the last 10-15 minutes of proofing)
- When the dough IS ready (finger test!), score and spray the surface with water generously.
- Take the dish with hot water out from the oven, load the dough onto the baking stone, spray inside the oven generously and pour 1/2 – 3/4 cup of boiling water onto the hot pebbles/lava rocks. Shut the door immediately.
- After 5 minutes, spray inside the oven again, IF necessary.
- After another 5 minutes (= 10 min after loading the dough), take the tray of pebbles/lava rocks out, lower the oven temperature to 220C with fan and bake for 12-15 minutes.
- (If the crust is browning too quickly) Lower the temperature to 200-210C.
- Take the baked baguettes out of the oven and cool completely. (No extra-drying in the turned-off oven with a door ajar. It’d dry the crumb too much)
(This part suffered from the bent tip, ended up with one side with closed crumb......Excuse, excuse. :p)
(More evenly spread holes in unaffected part of the baguette......Yes, the crust looks too thick. Some ****** sales xxxxxxx person rang me just about when I was trying to take the baguettes out from the oven.....)
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So…….the next report will be …..the experiment with T55 flour, at last. With proper, authentic flour, I will have NOTHING to make excuse for my dire result! Watch this space.....with kinder heart, please!!
best wishes,
lumos