"Scoop" bread

French countryside with poolish

This is my first post since a long time. In the last few months we went 3 times to the Netherlands. And every time we went because of dying family members. This last time we went to be with my mother. She died on March 3th. She was 81 years old and died surrounded by the ones who loved her. 

For me that’s a comforting thought. What is left are many good memories and my brother and I. That’s good!
When we came back the freezer was empty and my sourdough was in a deep sleep in the refrigerator. It will take time to wake it up or I start a new one.

Even though you can buy great bread in the Netherlands I still prefer my own bread. I choose a mixture of recipes and this is the result; delicious and easy French countryside with poolish.

The evening before I mixed the flour, water and yeast in a plastic bowl, covered it and left it to ferment until the next morning. It was full of bubbles and smelled freshly sour. Not a nice a good sourdough, but still very nice.  

I scooped the dough out of the mixing bowl into the plastic bowl to ferment. I decided to forget the shaping and scooped the dough onto a thick floured tea towel and left it to proof. It was a while since I baked with my cast iron pan (Dutch oven). Again I, kind of, scooped the dough into the very hot cast iron pan.

The taste and smell of this easy bread is delicious.

This is what I used:

Bakers formula          %          grams

Flours                          100       740

Water                          81        600

Salt                              1.8       14

Poolish:

500 gr lukewarm water 

2gr dry yeast 

500 gr unbleached flour

The evening before make the poolish. Mix flour, yeast and water. Cover up and leave on room temperature for 8 – 16 hours.

Final dough: 

all the poolish 

100 gr lukewarm water

2 gr dry yeast 

140 gram flour 

50 gr home milled wheatbran

50 gr ryeflour 

14 gr salt 

50 gr flaxseed, crushed

This is what I did:

Mix the flour, yeast, poolish and water in the bowl of the mixer. Use the dough hook and knead for 5 minutes. Add the salt and mix another 5 minutes. During the last minute I added the crushed flaxseeds. The dough is smooth and comes off the bowl.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container. Cover and ferment at room temperature for 1 hour. Fold after 30 minutes and leave the dough to rise for another 30 minutes.

Cover a tea towel with a lot of flour and scoop the dough on the towel. Cover the top with flour and place the towel in a bowl to proof for 1 hour (or until it doubles in size).

I preheated the oven to 230°C and placed the cast iron pan on the pizza stone.

When the oven is hot enough I very carefully scooped the dough from the tea towel into the cast iron pan. Quickly put the lid on and closed the oven. I baked the loaf in my cast iron pan; 30 minutes with lid and 30 minutes without the lid. 

Let the loaves cool completely on a wire rack.

I send this to Susan’s YeastSpotting