Poolish Baguettes

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge poolish baguette recipe is one of the easiest, tasty breads in the book.  You mix up some flour, water, and yeast and let it sit until it bubbles quite a bit.  Then you stick it in the refrigerator, for up to three days – where it develops flavor – until you decide to make bread.

On the day you want to make bread, you add more yeast, flour, salt, and water, knead for a bit, then let the dough rise three separate times before baking.  This dough uses a just a touch of whole-wheat flour (or you can sift the bran out of a larger amount of whole-wheat flour, if you have a very fine sifter), which adds another layer of flavor to the bread.  Once baked, I found this bread to be perfect for sandwiches.  Not too crusty, but not too soft, either.  Of course, it was also the right complement to a layer of soft cheese, and definitely the correct vehicle for soaking up the sauce left at the bottom of a bowl of pasta.  I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.  This is an everyday bread, with great reason.  And since it only uses a portion of the poolish recipe given in the book, I had enough left over to make a couple of loaves of ciabatta.  Which are going in my Thanksgiving stuffing.  Have I mentioned that these days I really, really like things that make my life easier?  Just one more thing to be thankful for, and I already have plenty!  Happy, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  I hope you find all kinds of things that make your life easier, too, so that you can enjoy the holiday.

p.s.  You can find the recipe here.

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Tagged as: BBAC, bread, poolish baguettes