Low Oil & Sugar, High Health – Wheat Germ Soft European Bread
A simple home oven, without fancy baking stones or perfectly even steam, and with temperatures that aren’t always reliable, might make it hard to get bread with beautiful scores and “ears”. Even so, my favorite thing is still baking some plain, rustic staple breads at home. Taking dough that’s been proofed just right and is full of elasticity, slashing it with a sharp blade, then watching the cuts expand in the intense heat of the oven and transform to a golden color—there’s only one word for it: sensual. Utterly sensual. Recently, A-Zi has been going through a deception—or rather, has been coming to terms with a deception that had always been there but went unnoticed. There’s been frustration and sadness over the loss of a friend. But once I start making bread, I can feel its warmth—so real, so solid—as if there would never again be deception, and the world is still as beautiful as ever. That day I unconsciously pressed the shutter a few more times for these unassuming little loaves. I hope you all like them.
Ingredients
Steps
One day in advance, mix together all the poolish ingredients.
Seal the mixed poolish dough well and ferment it for 1 hour at 24–26°C, then refrigerate for 12 hours.
Before making the bread, pour boiling water into the 50g of bread flour for the tangzhong, and quickly stir until smooth with no dry flour. Let it cool and set aside.
Before making the bread, take the poolish dough out of the fridge and let it come back to room temperature.
Combine the poolish, the tangzhong, and all the main dough ingredients and knead into a dough.
Knead until the dough is smooth, then cover with plastic wrap and a damp cloth to ferment. After about 45 minutes of proofing, give the dough one set of folds as if folding a cup, then cover again and continue fermenting.
When the dough has doubled in size, take it out and gently press out the gas.
After degassing, divide the dough into suitable portions, shape each into a tight ball, and let rest for 25 minutes.
Shape into the desired forms, place on a baking tray, and proof until doubled in size. Dust the surface lightly with flour, score, and bake in a preheated 220°C oven for about 15 minutes.
The dough proofed in the banneton is a 500g piece of dough.
Each round piece is 100g of dough.