Tag Archives: Poolish

April 11th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners VIII: Wild Spring Herbs Bread

Frühlingswurzel In the last days, the weather was warm and sunny and it finally feels like real spring. The first trees started to flower and the leaves will develop soon and the world will be green once again. And already the first fresh herbs can be found in garden and forest, like wild garlic, ground elder  and salad burnet. Blended together this herbs yields an aromatic paste which adds a great flavour to this crusty bread and turns the crumb slightly green.

As preferment I used a poolish. A poolish is made with the same amount of water and flour and a tiny little bit of yeast. It rise for 14-16 hours and has to used while its surface is still doomed. In contrast to a biga, which is really forgiving when used half a day later then planned, a poolish has only a limited time window in which it can be used. After that it starts to degrade and collapse.  But it helps the dough to rise well and adds a mild, complex flavour.  The name poolish comes from the polish bakers who brought this kind of dough to France in former times. Here he is used often for baguette dough.

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January 18th, 2015

Pure Spelt

Pures Dinkel (1)

A reader asked for pure spelt recipe here on the blog and I realized that there a only few and that recipes without sourdough are even fewer. And so I baked a pure spelt bread last weekend. It is a light bread with a little bit whole spelt flour, a poolish and a long rise to enhance the flavour.  I put the whole spelt floor into the poolish, so it had enough time to soak properly. Another part of the flour I mixed with water and placed it overnight in the fridge. The next morning I mixed the autolysed dough together with the poolish and a hot soaker. The hot soaker prevents the dough from baking dry, an often occurring problem with pure spelt bread.

The bread turned out to be a highlight: Great oven spring, crisp crust, soft crumb and a fantastic flavour.

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October 26th, 2014

Wheat Spelt Baguette

Dinkel-Weizen-Stange (2)

This Weekend I planed to bake the Baguettes which Sara posted on her Blog. But when I mixed the poolish I ran out of white flour. It was already late evening, it was cold and raining and I did not want to leave home again to run to the supermarket. Instead I checked what was left: rye flour was no alternative, but white spelt flour and a darker wheat flour was looking very good.  And because the planed recipe was now out of discussion I mixed a bigger batch sourdough with the darker wheat flour and made an autolysis dough with the spelt flour.

The next morning I kneaded the dough by hand and let it rise for the hours at room temperature with some folds in between. Then we left home to buy and plant some apple trees with my spouses parents. When we came home late afternoon I heated the oven and formed the dough to baguettes. When I pulled the loaves from the oven they smelled divined. So we ate one while still warm. And it tasted as good as it smelled. Crunchy crust, middle open crumb and a deep, complex flavour due to the two preferments and the cold fermentation. A unplanned bread which turned into a favourite!

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October 16th, 2014

Pumpkin rolls

Kürbisbrötchen

It’s again this time of the year: Zorra asks all of us to bake a bread for world bread day. Since I have a blog of my own I follow her call and post a delicious recipe on 16. of october, This year I found inspiration for the recipe in the big, plumb pumpkins we harvested in the garden of the parents from my love.

When I use homemade pumpkin puree the water content always vary and this make it difficult to repeat the recipe. And so I took my old but beloved juice centrifuge  and juiced 600g pumpkin. I got nearly 340g juice. I used it to make a poolish in the morning and kneaded a dough with more juice and the poolish in the evening. I formed the rolls before I went to bed and let the rolls proof in the fridge. At the next morning I only had to bake the rolls.

The rolls got a dark golden crust and a soft yellow crumb. They have a strong, delicious pumpkin flavour – as good as rolls with pumpkin puree – and the preferment and the long, cold proof for a complex flavour. And the the remaining pumpkin marc from juicing can be cooked in a pumpkin soup. And to the pumpkin soup you can of course serve this rolls…

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June 27th, 2014

Light Spelt Bread

Helles Dinkelbrot (3)

With the new oven I had to bake a bread immediately. I didn’t have a pure spelt bread for some time and so I decided that spelt bread should be the first bread baked in the new oven! With some sourdough and poolish for a good, complex flavour and a hot soaker to keep it moist.

But really existing was the moment when I placed the bread in the oven. I turned the oven to “Hydrobake”, which is the oven programm that traps the steam inside and throw some ice cubes inside to create some more steam. And then I sat in front of the oven and watch the bread rise the same way like other people would watch a thriller. The oven spring was indeed nicer then in my old oven. But the most impressing thing is the great colour and shine of the crumb which shows the importance of steam for a the maillard reaction.

I’m really happy with the new oven. And I’m happy with the bread as well. It tastes great, has a nice open crumb and a very crisp crust! It tastes so good, that I had no change to freeze one loaf because we it so fastly!

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June 9th, 2014

Pentecost Rolls

Pfingst-Brötchen

We spent this Pentecost sunday with my parents in their garden. At evening, when my sister and her family headed home to put their exhausted children to bed, my mum and me started to fill the dishwasher and to tidy the garden. My mum asked me then: “I prepared a poolish in the morning. Do you have an idea for breakfast rolls?” Of course I had and while she collected the toys flying around in the garden, I kneaded a dough and chatted a little bit with my dad. We put the dough in the cold cellar so it could rise overnight.

The next morning my mom send me some pictures from their breakfast table and the note: “The rolls are great” . And so we decided to do this blog post together, with her pictures and my writing and the rolls we did together!

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July 14th, 2013

Aroma Bread

Aromabrot

I love to bake breads with more than one preferment. My favorite Wheat & Rye Bread or the Young Boar Crust are good examples for the harmony of a yeast preferment and sourdough. But it has been literally years that I bake a bread with three preferments. I don’t know why I waited so long until I baked a three preferments bread once again.

To bake this bread is not so complicated as it sounds. Mixing three preferments instead of one or two needs maybe three minutes longer and this three minutes are really worth the trouble. You will realize it as soon as you take the first bit of this aromatic bread.

This bread is crammed with flavour. Souble sweet notes from the poolish, an alcoholic hint from the pâte fermentée and the slightly sour taste of a young sourdough. The preferments contain about 45% of the flour used for the bread.  Some whole wheat flour and dark rye flour adds some nutty flavours while the malt extract adds some additional sugar to make sure that there is enough sugar for the yeast to eat and for the browning of the crust.

I’m completly in love with this bread. With its crunchy crust, tender crumb and the deep, complex flavour it is my Aroma bread!

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October 28th, 2012

Ammerländer Apfelkuchen

Ammerländer-ApfelkuchenDuring autumn, one of the most used fruits in our kitchen is apple. And when I wake this morning very early around due to the change from daylight saving time to winter time, I decided to knead the shortcrust for apple cake Elfriede. And while the dough is resting in the fridge I have time to blog about the apple cake I bake last weekend. I found the “Ammerländer Apfelkuchen” on Chili & Ciabatta and fell in love with the mixture of apple compote and custard which is used for the filling. Because I always cook custards without the help of convenient products I used Petras Recipe as inspiration, but with my own dough (with a preferment and less yeast) and a  homecook custard. This apple cake is now the new favourite of me. It has a soft apple filling, topped with rich custard, butter, sugar and almond slices.  The compote filling reminds me a little bit of the Rheinischen Riemchenkuchen. And due to this filling, it stays fresh for some days! Continue reading

July 14th, 2012

Flaxseed-Triangle

Leinsaat-Ecke

Last weekend I thought about trying another shape for my loaves then the normal round boules or slender batards. I felt that it was time to bring some geometry in my kitchen and try to shape some triangles.

That the dough should contain 30% whole wheat flour, flax seeds and a poolish I had already decided the night before. A not to wet dough, perfect to test a new shape.

To shape the triangle, I preshape round loaves, let them rest for some time and then I flatten their sides and fold this “wings to the middle of the bread. That created a bread with the perfect triangle shape.

And the taste of the triangle is good, too. The flaxseeds adds a nutty flavor and the poolish give some complexity to the aroma of the bread. The crust is crisp and the crumb is open. A good bread for my lunch breaks!

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June 24th, 2012

Bergische Knüppel – Overnight variation

Bergische Knüppel ÜbernachtThe delicious Knüppel are great as Overnight variation, too.  Kornblumeasked me how to change the recipe so that the dough could ferment overnight and together we developed the overnight variation. And during thinking about it I decided that I would try them, too.

Similar to the Krustis, the dough fermeted slowly overnight and at the next morning I only had to form and bake the rolls. The short proofing (only 30 minutes) helps to get fresh rolls on the breakfast table fastly.

The long fermentation creates more complex aroma then in my first Bergische Knüppel recipe. They had again a great ovenspring, the crust was crisp and crackle during cooling down. The crumb was again niecly soft and fluffy.

I am glad I tried them as overnight roll, too!

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