(work in progress) A Rye and white flour Soudough French-bread style baguette recipie using the Poolish method.

OK. Before the purist artizan-bread-lobby turn up and lynch the author, it should be pointed out that in the true sense of the word, this is not a sourdough recipie; True Sourdoughs are made from using a natural wild 'starter'. ¹

Principles and desired outcome

This recipie should create baguettes (or loafs or rolls if you prefer), with a dense but light texture, containing 'holes' of varying size (not all just little air holes like in commercial bread). The pre-ferment (Poolish), helps add a sutble flavour of sourdough, aids in the finished texture and overall flavour of the baguettes. Using either a mixture of rye and white flour, or 100% white flour, should produce good results, but the rye adds to both texture and taste; 100% rye is very hard to work with, and rising may not be satisfactory. All weights and amounts are approximate; given varying humidity the recipe may require more or less water, and when kneeding it is important to work with pretty-much as wet a dough as you can handle. For proper French bread, the hydration should be at least 60%, but %66 is better, and %70 is better still (the higher hydration the harder to work with the slacker dough this produces).

Total Ingredients

• 650 grams Strong white flour
• 480 to 528 Grams water (60% and 66% hydration respectively)
• 150 Grams Rye Flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoosn dried active Yeast
• 2 teaspoons Salt (about 15 to 20 Grams)
• 2 Teaspoons honey (optional)

Extra, additional ingredients

Really you can play about with anything which you think might help add to the flavour, but I like combinations of some of the following

• Rosemary
• Poppy Seeds
• Caraway seeds
• Sessamy seeds
• Oragano

Making the Poolish

Poolish, is a French term, and refers to Poland; apparently it was a method brought to France by the Polish and then incorperated into many French bread recipies, and adapted for many others. It is a type of pre-ferment; when some of the flour, and water, along with a very small amoutn of yeast, is left for a prolongued period (which varys), in varying conditions. The slow, long ferment can cause the yeast to metabolise the sugars present in the salt in differnt ways, which results in differnt textures and flavours in the finished loaf/bread. If your poolish goes well, then when its fermented and you take a nice sniff of it, you oughta be thinking

Oh, parrots cheeks, this hasn't gone well, it smells awful

A poolish is but one variety of pre-ferment, and each type of pre-ferment can be treated in differing ways; The time its let to work, the temperature, etc., can be altered for each, producing slightly differnt results.

This poolish is a 50/50 flour/water mix, to give 100% hydration.

Ingredients for Poolish

• 300 Grams Water
• 150 Grams Rye flour
• 150 Grams White flour
• 2 Teaspoons honey ²
• 1/4 Teaspoon Dried active yeast

Method for Poolish

• Make up the desired quantity of water using some hot (from kettle), and some cold to give a tepid solution
• Add in the honey, stir, then the 1/4 teaspoon yeast and stir
• After about ten minutes throw in the flour and stir well in a single direction ³
• Consistancy should be of a fairly watery/paste batter solution
• Leave in a sufficiently large container/bowl, overnight (12 up to 24 hours, less if your in a hurry), in a warm, but not hot location, covering the top of the container loosely

Remaining ingrediants for the second day

• 500 Grams white flour
• 180 to 228 Grams Water (for 60% and 66% hydration respectively) ⁴
• 2 Teaspoons dried active yeast
• 2 Teaspoons salt
• 1/2 or 1/4 teaspon sugar to activate the yeast

Day two; final method

• As before mix the yeast (2 teaspoons) with the luke warm water (you should add a very tiny bit of sugar to help activate the yeast, which also gives you the certainty of being able to see, and hear that the yeast is active).
• Mix the flour and salt together in a seperate bowl
• Add this new yeast and water mixture to the poolish you made last night and stir well ⁵
• Add in the flour/salt mix, in small portions, stirring it in each time
• The flour/salt mix should be added in four or five seperate portions, this helps ensure an even dispersal of this flour with the water/yeast mix, and the poolish
• Remember, a little too wet is better than a little too dry; add flour, and/or water, until the dough achieves a consistancy which pulls away from the side of the bowl and which you can work with
• Turn the dough out on to the work surface (maybe a little flour on the worktop to stop sticking), wash up the bowl as you'll need this again in a moment
• Whilst you've washed up the bowl, you should already see and hear the dough beginning to work, now its your turn; get kneeding!
  1. fold dough in half, towards yourself
  2. Flatturn the dough a little
  3. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat step one
• Kneed for around ten minutes, adding more flour as it becomes necessary (again we're trying to have a pretty hydrated dough here if we can)
• Once kneeded it is time for the 'long knead'- lightly oil the bowl you washed up earlier ⁶ Cover the bowl and let rise for 30 minutes
• After 30 minutes pull the dough out of the bowl, stretch it slightly, and then 'dump' it back into the bowl, in a 'heap'
• repeat the long knead 2 more times (3 in total), after this the dough should still seem quite loose
• Now it is time to knock back; this doesn't mean beat the heck out of it:
  1. fold the dough until it has reduced to approximately 3/4 its largest size during the rising earlier
• Now divide the dough into four portions, and carefully shape into sausage shapes
• Leave to rise for 30 minutes
• Roll, stretch and flatturn each portion into a long rectangle
• Fold lengthwise and repeat the process- this helps distrubute the texture throughout the portions)
• Now form each portion of dough into a 'baguette', and place on a lightly oiled baking tray, or ideally a baguette tray
• Leave to rise for 30 minutes; now is a good time to heat the oven to get a good temperature).
• after 30 minutes, boil the kettle and put an inch or more of water into an old metal rosting tray, and place this in the bottom of the oven
• Wait five minutes
• Slash/score each baguette about three times, spray with water until they are quite wet, and then place on the top shelf in the oven
• After 15 minutes remove the roasting tray of hot water, check the baguettes, spraying them again with water, and rotating them on the shelf if they are not cooking evenly
• After a further 5 to ten minutes the baguettes should be done, remove them from the oven and put on cooling racks to cool