Baguettes (Poolish)

Ingredients 

Poolish (night before)

1g instant yeast

125g warm water

125g bread flour

Dough (next morning)

300g bread flour

5g salt

1g instant yeast

140g warm water

Directions

• mix poolish ingredients and let it sit overnight in a covered bowl at room temperature
• poolish should be very bubbly the next day to indicate active yeast
• add water to the poolish and mix in the dry ingredients
• let the dough sit in the bowl covered for 10min
• stretch and fold the dough 4x at 10min interval
• let it proof for 1hr
• punch down the dough and divide into 3 equal parts
• fold and roll each dough and rest for 15min covered in damp cloth
• shape the dough into baguette and transfer to baguette tray
• let it rest for 1hr covered with damp cloth
• meanwhile pre-heat oven to 240C
• score the baguette, spray with water and bake for 20-25min till desired color (add ice to bottom tray to create steam. Remove ice tray after 10min. Reduce the temperature to 200C at 15min)
• let the bread cool fully on a wire rack before slicing

Foodnote: Love baguettes and going to keep trying to find good recipes. Trying this recipe. This is a good recipe. Dough is easy to handle and steps is very clear. I still need to improve on my shaping and scoring but overall this is good. The smell of baking bread is always so good. Will definitely make it again... perhaps maybe I divide the dough into 4? Make the baguette skinnier 😊

The poolish makes the bread soft and really yummy nom nom nom... Will stick to this recipe for baguette for now. Might try to add diastatic malt next time.

Pumpkin Sourdough Bread

Ingredients

300g bread flour

100g active sourdough starter

6g salt

250g pumpkin puree

50g pumpkin seeds

Directions

• in a bowl, mix flour with salt
• add starter and pumpkin puree and stir well
• transfer to mixer and using dough hook, mix for 10min
• transfer back to bowl and rest for 30min
• do first coil fold and rest for 30min
• add pumpkin seeds 1/4 at a time while doing coil fold and rest another 30min
• do 3rd coil fold and rest till dough double in size
• transfer into floured surface and shape
• put into proofing basket, cover with plastic
• leave in chiller for 8 up to 48hrs till ready to bake
• pre-heat oven and dutch oven to 230C
• transfer to silicon mat, score and transfer to dutch oven
• insert ice into flap of dutch oven
• bake for 30mins covered
• remove lid and bake at 200C for another 15min

Foodnote: I have pumpkin seeds and been wanting to try and make pumpkin sourdough bread. Found this simple recipe from here. Weather is good and sunny... have bought pumpkin from the supermarket to make into puree. Starter is still active so it became another bread day. However, I only managed to get 230g of puree so I added 20g water. Turns out good. 

The smell of baking bread is marvellous as always and love that it is a bit rounded and not flat. There is not much oven spring but I am good with it.

It was a rushing day. While cooling the bread, I went out for walk. A friend message me that she have extra ticket for Perfect Timing by Dr Omar Suleiman. So I decided to bless half of the bread for her. Reached home late so I only managed to taste the bread the next day. Lightly toast it on my non stick pan and slather it with my favorite Lurpak butter.

Ok... it is so delicious oh my. Definitely will make this again 😘👌!