Continuing with the Forkish book, I tried another bread, on
a day with no expectation of power outage at baking time. This one was what he
calls his "Harvest Bread with Poolish." The recipe calls for 10% whole wheat, for which I substituted organic
pumpernickel, and 5% wheat germ and 2% wheat bran; I used all wheat germ, or 7%. I seem to like more hydration, or maybe I was a little sloppy when adding water, so increased
that too—probably to 80%. This dough is about 50% poolish. Interesting.
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| Poolish after 13 hrs |
The bread is just as Forkish describes: buttery and aromatic. It is soft, flavorful, with a moist open crumb and a nice crisp crust. In addition to being very good, this bread suits my
lifestyle, at least on weekends. You mix the poolish at 6:00 pm, leave it on
the counter overnight, mix the dough at 7:00 a.m. next morning, and bake around
10 a.m. A couple of folds early in bulk fermentation. A total breeze. Much more convenient, and
better taste and texture, than the Saturday Bread.
In fact, I am a little worried about just how easy and
convenient. Bread like this is just about the best thing to have for breakfast,
toasted or not, with butter, and jam or not. And just about the best thing to
have for lunch, with a good cheddar or gruyere. And just about the best thing to have for dinner,
with a salad or some sautéed mushrooms and wine. Or both. Pretty soon you’ve
eaten half a loaf in a day. Half of a two-pound loaf, that is. Yikes!
