No Nonsense Full Wheat Bread

I usually bake bread in the weekends and because I love bread that is based on a poolish with sourdough, I must prepare the poolish the evening before. The next morning, when the poolish is ready, I can start my baking. So almost every Sunday we have fresh bread.
Last Saturday night I forgot my poolish preparation (to much wine?), so I decided to make a poolish based on dry yeast, as it only takes 3 hours to develop. Bertinet helped me for a recipe: in his book Dough he published a way to make 100% full wheat bread, based on a poolish with dry yeast. Because I don't do any stretches and folds I called it No Nonsense Bread....

Poolish:
- 250 g full wheat flour
- 250 g water
- 3 g dry yeast

Dissolve the yeast in the water and mix it well with the flour. Let the poolish develop in a bowl, covered with plastic (put it in a plastic pedal bin liner) and place the bowl on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga for about 3 hours (not longer then 5 hours). The poolish is ready for use when it starts collapsing a little after it almost doubled in volume.

Ingredients:
- 250 g full wheat flour
- 80 g water
- 10 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the flour and the water with the poolish until the flour has absorbed all the liquid. No kneading yet! Leave the mass, covered with plastic, for half an hour on the rack on the warming plate for a process that is called autolyse.
After this autolyse mix the salt and the yeast in the dough and start kneading "the Bertinet way". Check my previous post about making Spelt Bread for an explanation of this way of kneading dough for 10 to 15 minutes. When the dough is ready (not sticking any more to the work surface and your hands), put it in a lightly floured bowl, cover it and let it rest for 15 minutes.
After this rest you can shape the bread by putting the dough on a sligthly floured work surface (my work surface for kneading is a tile of chinese black stone, it works very well!) and form it into a batard. Check this Hamelman video for learning how to shape a bread. Put the dough in a wicker basket plated with floured linen and let it (covered with plastic) proof for almost an hour on the warming plate. After proofing and scoring the bread with a razor blade bake the bread for about 45 minutes in the roasting oven. Don't forget to create a humid atmosphere! A detailed explanation how to use the roasting oven for baking bread you can find on my post about making Spelt Bread.

Baguette with Spelt and Sourdough

This way of making baguettes is inspired by (again) Weekend Bakery's recipe of their 80% hydration baguettes, but I use sourdough and some spelt and less water (70% hydration).
I am very satisfied with the result: the crust is great and the baguettes taste wonderful!

Poolish:

- 100 g spelt flour
- 200 g wheat flour
- 300 g water
- 15 g sourdough culture

Start the evening before baking the baguettes by making the poolish: mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it by using a plastic pedal bin liner. Keep the poolish for an hour at room temperature and then put it in the fridge during the night. The next morning you can let your poolish develop at room temperature again and leave it until you start making your baguettes (let's say at noon, so you will have fresh bread at 4.00 PM).

Ingredients:

- the poolish
- 300 g wheat flour
- 120 g water
- 10 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water and let this 'not-yet-dough' rest for half an hour at room temperature. This process is called autolyse. After this autolyse add the salt and the dry yeast and knead the dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. Check my previous post about making Sourdough Bread with Spelt for the kneading technique I learned from Richard Bertinet.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with plastic and let it rest for 3 quarters of an hour on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga.
Take out the dough and do 2 complete stretch and folds (see my post about Sourdough Bread again for this technique) and put the dough back in the bowl. Cover it and let it rest for 45 minutes on the warming plate. Repeat this procedure 2 times, but one complete stretch and fold will do. So all together 3 stretch and folds and 2 and a half hours rest.
Now take out the dough, put it on a slightly floured working surface and divide it in 3 portions. Preshape the portions by flattening them and fold them 3 times so they look like miniature baguettes. Let them rest on the working surface for 10 minutes, covered with plastic, before you roll them out to shape them. Check this YouTube instruction video by Jeff Hamelman how to preshape and shape baguettes.
Now it is time for proofing: I use a well floured thick cotton tea towel for this, the way Hamelman shows in his instruction video. Let you your baguettes proof for about half an hour.
Score them 5 times (instruction video) and bake them in a very humid roasting oven for about 35 minutes.

French croissants "the Hamelman way"

As I explained before, I think that bread should only consist of flour, water, salt and yeast. But... I am fond of croissants and Ed and Marieke inspired me by publishing their great croissants making video. So I started to make croissants "the Hamelman way" a few weeks ago for the first time in my Aga. It was a disaster! The croissants were ugly, the butter was far to warm and emerging through the dough, my working surface was greasy and sticky, etc. Next week I tried again: disaster number 2. Ugly croissants, but they tasted great! This weekend I followed the instructions from the Weekend Bakery more strictly and the result is satisfying.

How did I do it?

Dough:

- 500 g wheat flour

- 140 ml cold water

- 140 ml cold milk

- 50 g sugar

- 40 g soft (salted) butter

- 11 g dry yeast

- 8 g salt

Further:

- a packet of cold (salted) butter (250 g)

- 1 egg for the egg wash 

The evening before baking the croissants you prepare the dough. Mix the ingredients and knead it for a few minutes so it becomes a nice, homogeneous dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest during the night in the fridge.

The next day, take the butter from the fridge and place it on a piece of baking paper on a cold working surface. Slice the butter with a cold knife in 8 slices of 1.25 cm thick: as the butter in Holland is sold in packets that measure 7 cm x 3 cm x 10 cm, you can form an almost square: 12 x 14 cm. Now put another piece of baking paper on top and pound the butter with a rolling pin until it measures 19 x 19 cm. It has to become a perfect square, use a knife to shape the edges, pound it again, use a knife again.... success! Put the butter in the fridge again.

Now take out the dough from the fridge, flour your working surface lightly and roll out the dough to a perfect square, measured 27 x 27 cm.

Take out the butter square from the fridge (it has to be cold but still pliable) and place it on the dough: the points of the butter square have to be centered along the sides of the dough. Now fold the dough over the butter, like an envelope. The dough must cover the butter entirely. You end up with a perfect square dough, with the butter completely sealed inside. Hamelman published some very instructive pictures on this site.

Now flour your dough lightly on both sides and roll it out, very gently, to a piece which measures about 20 x 60 cm. Fold it letter style: pick up one short end of the dough and fold it back over the dough, leaving one third of the other end of dough exposed. Then fold the exposed dough over the folded side. Put the dough on a baking sheet, cover it with plastic wrap and put it for 20 minutes in your freezer for relaxing and chilling.

Repeat the rolling and folding and freezing two more times, every time rolling the dough until it measures about 20 x 60 cm. Put your dough in plastic again and put it in your fridge.
The next morning it is time to make your croissants! Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured working surface to a piece of 20 x 112 cm. Take your time for it and press your rolling pin only lightly. Now you can cut 15 triangles out of the dough: the short side of the triangles measure 12,5 cm, both long sides measure about 22 cm. Roll the triangles into croissants, brush them with the egg wash (made of the egg and a tablespoon of water) and let them proof on a rack on the warming plate of your Aga for almost 2 hours. Bake them in your roasting oven for only 4 or 5 minutes, transfer them to the baking oven and let them bake for another 12 to 15 minutes.

The best video to watch on YouTube about making croissants is of course this one: the late and great Julia Child!