I thought I'd take a few moments on this cloudy, off again-on again rainy afternoon and share my latest bread baking adventure, compliments of Weekend Bakery.I discovered the website some months ago while reviewing croissant methods (and theirs is right on par with mine - yes!!). Written by a couple in the Netherlands who bake at home during the weekends, it is a plethora of bread baking tips, techniques, recipes, videos and overall great information for all of you avid bread bakers out there. You can choose English or Dutch and you should definitely check it out!
Since I was preparing to teach my own bread baking class to Lisa and Jerry (AVID bread bakers for sure), I was perusing various posts and recipes and decided I needed a little test project to get me in the mood. Ficelle here we come.
The word is literally translated as string, and the bread is basically a thinner version of a baguette. This one happens to be made with a combo of bread flour and semolina, an ingredient I enjoy immensely in my pizza dough. Must be good, right?
The WB version is a sourdough ficelle using the so called hybrid method with a sourdough poolishwhich is then incorporated into the final dough which contains added instant yeast.They are thoughtful in giving one the option to use all instant yeast, which is especially helpful for those of us who have yet to jump on the natural starter band wagon - maybe one of these days folks.
A poolish is a starter dough made with equal weights flour and water plus a small amount of yeast (or sourdough starter if you're going that route). For this recipe mix 200 g bread flour with 200 g water plus 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast OR 30 g active sourdough culture.
Below is the starter just after it's mixed. Generally the poolish is allowed to sit, covered, for some hours, either at room temperature or in the fridge depending on the time frame of your recipe. This one is a six hour, room temp wait, so it's easy to plan to accomplish it in one day.
For the final dough, in the bowl of your stand mixture fitted with the dough hook,combine the above poolish with 200 g bread flour, 100 g semolina, 110 g water, 8 g sea salt and 5 g instant yeast. Knead on low speed (2 on a Kitchenaid) for 7 minutes then cover it and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface,do a full stretch and fold (top down,bottom up, right side over, left side over and ball it up) and let the dough rest another 30 minutes.
