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Mary - short fermantation and flavour

Wcsjohn@aol.com
Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:24:11 EST
v104.n007.9
Mary

The most effective ingredient for producing good flavour in the shortest 
possible time is a small (2 - 5% of total flour weight) amount of rye 
flour. If you use a high-yeast, short time preferment you can get 
surprisingly good results.

The recipe that follows takes 8 hours form start to removing the loaves 
from the oven and there's a 4 hour prefement in there. I've had excellent 
results from as little as 1 hours preferment in a warm kitchen.

I append the recipe for my 1 day Ciabatta for you to use as a basis for 
experiment.

1 Day Ciabatta

Sightly enriched, rustic dough, indirect method, ca. 8 hours elapsed time 
to make.
Yield 4 medium Ciabatta loaves and 12 fat rolls.

POOLISH

475 gm 12% or more protein content white flour
25 gm rye
700 gm hot water,
2 teaspoons instant yeast*

Mix all ingredients and whisk until smooth and showing elasticity, loosely 
cover and leave on counter 4 hours, fermentation will be vigorous.

DOUGH

The poolish
500 gm white flour as above
20 gm salt
6 tablespoons dried milk
2 tablespoons olive oil

Whisk the oil into the poolish, make a well of the dry ingredients on the 
counter and rough mix, the dough will be sticky. Using one hand and a bench 
knife in the other grab the dough with your fingers, pull straight up and 
let slap down onto the counter. Keep doing this until the dough is very 
elastic, takes me 2-3 minutes. The dough should be  stretching 12-18 inches 
and reasonably smooth but it doesn't have to  be perfectly smooth.**

Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and counter and gather the dough 
together, it is very soft but coherent and elastic.

Stretch and fold 4 times at 10 minute intervals.

Leave, well floured, covered, on the counter to double.

Without knocking down cut the dough into 8 pieces. Divide 4 of the pieces 
into 3 making the 12 rolls.

Stretch and fold each piece to a fat roll or loaf.

proof en couche, seam side up to double and very wobbly

Bake the rolls first, inverted, at your oven's top temperature immediately 
turned down to 220C, about 10 minutes, internal temp 94C.

While the rolls are baking, stretch the large dough pieces into the correct 
Ciabatta shape and leave, still seam side up, to recover, while the rolls 
finish and the oven heats up to top whack again.

Bake inverted as for the rolls, about 20 minutes, same internal temp.

So light it almost flies.

Put the poolish on in the morning, Ciabatta for supper or dinner.

*Yes, 2 teaspoons is a hell of a lot for a poolish but it's a short 
preferment and there's no extra yeast in the main dough.

** You could, with equal effect run it through a heavy duty mixer with a 
dough hook at MEDIUM speed for 5 minutes or so.

John