The Curious Case of the Loaf in the Night-Time

With apologies to Mark Haddon

Technically speaking, I consider this to have been a singularly happy accident, for reasons that we’ll discuss later. This is supposed to be a single loaf of pain de me. It turned into something else.

Poolish starter

4 oz. (by weight) each

AP flour and water

a pinch of active dry yeast

stir it up in a two cup measuring cup, cover with cling film, leave on the counter overnight.

Bread dough

one cup lukewarm water

one cup AP flour

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

whisk together and let sit for an hour

Add 3 3/4 cups flour

1 TBL sugar

3 TBL potato flour

1/4 cup dry milk

2 teaspoons salt

poolish starter

2/3 cup milk

Put the liquids, the yeast, and 2 cups of the flour into a bowl and mix until it looks like pancake batter. Let sit for an hour. This is called sponging the yeast, and it will wake up the yeast, get it nice and lively, and eliminate the need for a first rise, unless you do like I did and...

Well. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Hour's up. Everything in the bowl of a stand mixer. 2 minutes on low to combine. 4 minutes on medium. Place in oiled bowl to rise.

Boil a small pan (1 quart) of water and place both your bowl of bread dough and pan of hot water into the oven. This works best in an electric oven. Basically, you’re turning your oven into a proof box. The heat and steam from the water will encourage rise, and keep a skin from forming on your dough ball.

The first rise will take a while, as there’s a whole lot of dough for not a whole lot of yeast. It takes time to really permeate the dough and make it lively, upwards of an hour. Ideally, it will have doubled in size by then, and you’d put the pan of water back on to boil, punch the dough down, put everything in the oven, and raise it again.

After the second rise you can take the dough out of the bowl, and shape it to the pan you’ll be baking in. You could use a pair of bread pans, and those would work just fine. I use a Pullman pan, the square kind with a lid. Makes really nice, uniform loaves.

With your dough properly panned up, and your pan of water boiling again (remember to top it up as you go) go ahead and give it its last rise, about half an hour or long enough for the dough to reach just the top of the pan. Unless you’re using the open pans, then you want them to double in size.

Once its risen where you want it, take everything out of the oven, make sure the rack in on the second to bottom position, and start preheating the oven to 450F. When the oven has heated, spray a little cooking spray on your Pullman lid, slide it into place, and put your pan in the oven, turning the oven down to 425 and set the timer for 25 minutes. Once the time is up, take off the lid, give the pan a turn, and bake for another 20. When your bread has reached an internal temperature of 210F, it’s ready. Let it cool in the pan for five to ten minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack for a full hour. Slice and enjoy.

Or, you can do it the way I did when I had my joyous discovery.

What? Many disciplines meet in the kitchen.

When your wife comes home from work, forget that you were making bread for a good hour. Remember with a lurch, and go the oven to find that your dough ball getting ready to flop out of the bowl. Punch it down with a fury unseen on this planet. Put it back in the oven with the full intention of taking care of it while you’re making supper.

Maybe try my pulled pork recipe from a few weeks ago?

Make supper, having completely forgotten that you were doing anything bread oriented. Infact, continue to forget that your bread is rising in the oven and go to bed.

Remember at roughly 6:30 in the morning that you forgot your bread dough and bolt for the kitchen. Say good morning to the kids that are already up and fighting over who gets to play with the computer. With great trepidation, peek into the oven to find that it has collapsed in on itself. Feel bad for a minute, then decide to see if it’s still viable.

That's not exactly what we're looking for here.

Flour a working surface and get as much dough out of the bowl as you can. It’s incredibly sticky now, and all of the gluten (which is not a dirty word, thank you very much) has relaxed. Start kneading. You’ll notice the dough feels slack, like there’s no structure to it, and it’s picking up all the flour on your surface, so throw a little more on and continue kneading. This get absorbed quickly as well. By the time you’ve decided to quit kneading, try to have incorporated about a quarter of a cup of flour into the dough. Find a clean bowl, spray down with cooking spray, and put into the oven to rise. Probably won’t do anything anyway, right? This dough is dead, right?

Riiiiight.

Dead asleep is probably closer.

Take the kids to school. When you come back half an hour later your dough is alive, but it’s kind of sluggish. Make sure it has a warm, moist environment and let it be for an hour. When you come back it will have likely doubled in size. It’s also going to smell positively boozy.

Go get your pan. Again, I use a Pullman, but you’re free to do whatever you like. I will say that if you try to make this into a boule (round ball-shaped loaf), you’ll probably get a final product that looks like a deep dish pizza crust. Use a pan.

Rise, cover, bake, all according to the earlier instruction.

Congratulations! You have accidentally sourdough bread. It’s crusty and flavorful.

Makes a good fried egg sandwich, too.

Now, this isn't a textbook sourdough loaf. Traditionally, you don't use yeast. All the leavening comes from your starter. You also, usually, intend to make sourdough when you're making sourdough.

It's still a sourdough, though. Has all the hallmarks. This was a complete, if incredibly happy, accident. And what's not to love about that?

Seriously though, don't put your knife in the dishwasher.