The photo loaf

Well the photo you see here for my blog is a result of today's bread baking. I am trying to develop some type of a plan and recipe that allows me to bake fresh artisan style, well developed bread every other day. Generally that shouldn't be that difficult a thing but I am working with some interesting constraints (but I suspect fairly common for working people). I have 10 minutes, tops, in the morning to devote to bread, an hour at most before dinner and about 3 or 4 hours in the late evening.

Last night I started a poolish. Using a formula found in my "Bread Baking" book I mixed the flour and water and what amounted to not much more than a tiny pinch of yeast together. It was really hard to figure the amounts since everything was in weights. That was okay for the flour and water but I don't have a super sensitive digital scale so measuring the .03 ounces of yeast that was called for in the "formula" was near impossible. I went with 1/8 of a tsp. I left it overnight in a loosely covered tupperware bowl.

This morning, making me late for work, I mixed the formulas remaining flour and water for a minute in my Kitchen Aid. I let that sit in the bowl for 10 minutes. I heard 20 minutes is recommended but I didn't have that long, then I added in my poolish which had bubbled a bit and expanded slightly despite the small amount of yeast I had put in it. Last, I added 2 tsps of yeast and started up my KA with the dough hook. I sprinkled kosher salt on the dough while it mixed. I think I used about a tbsp. but I didn't measure. I let it knead for 6 minutes before turning it back into the poolish tupperware bowl, covering and sprinting out the door to work at 9:15.

Hubby was home at 3:00 today so keeping it simple I told him to sprinkle some flour in the bowl and fold the dough over a few times. My plan was that the dough would have another 2.5 hours to rise back up. When I came home I was going to gingerly cut the dough in half, place it in a floured cloth lined basket and let it rise another 1/2 hour while the oven and baking stone heated up.

When I came in the door at 5:30 I found my husband folding the dough again and sprinkling more flour. After a brief panic attack I decided to go ahead with my original plan to let it rise 1/2 hour and then bake. I was really worried that the bread, having lost a lot of it's air 1/2 hour before baking wouldn't recover and would be dense.

I split the dough into two loaves, one smaller, to bake fast so we could eat it with dinner and the other larger which I could give a bit more rising time. I have old double ovens and I usually bake in the bottom, so while the bottom heated to 500 degrees F the top oven was warmed a bit by the oven below. I put my formed loaves in that top oven to rise. My little loaf actually gained some loft and really took off when I slid it into the super hot steaming oven. The result was a pretty good loaf of bread. The family loved it and I was just so happy the bread hadn't been ruined. The second loaf with a bit more rise time came out even better. I'm still striving for a crisper, chewier more "Artisan" style crust but for my 1st documented attempt it wasn't bad!