Poilane Sourdough Bread: using a stiff starter

[anon66425146]

I recently purchased Poilane: The secrets of the world famous bread bakery by Apollonia Poilane. The history of the bakery including contributions (innovations & expansion of the business) from 3 generations is very interesting as well as poignant and a little bittersweet. Apollonia took over at 18, just after starting at Harvard, when her parents were killed in an accident. Still, she tells the story of the bakery with joy and passion and that is my personal attraction to the book.

The primary recipe: Poilane-Style Sourdough and a variation - Walnut Sourdough are what I made. A stiff starter is called for vs the 100% hydration liquid starter most of us use. Apollonia writes that this recipe is based on the bakery recipe but adapted for the home baker. Like many bakery adapted recipes, hers includes using active dry yeast in addition to the stiff starter. Instead of dry yeast, I subbed some of my normal starter in addition to the stiff starter and backed off the water and flour to correspond with my liquid starter: I used 100 grams of my liquid starter so reduced water by 50 grams and flour by 50 grams. Additionally, although she wrote that the stiff starter should be ready in 48 hours, I thought it needed a bit more so fed it an extra time and gave it another 24 hours. At 72 hours I thought it was good to go and fit her description of what it should be like. I used the 3 day old stiff starter for my first Poilane-Style Sourdough. I fed the starter again and next day made the Walnut variation. The Walnut with 4 day old starter took half the time for the bulk!

This is the Poilane-style sourdough. I did reduce quantities to 75% of recipe. The recipe notes that the result is a 12 inch boule and that sounded too large for my small (3.5 quart) dutch oven.

Crumb of the Poilane-style sourdough.

Walnut sourdough and 1 loaf is walnut cranberry. Apollonia writes that they make the walnut loaves small: 6 loaves from the full recipe. I made 3 from my 75% reduction.

The breads are all delicious and I have a feeling they will get better as I get more experience and the starter “ages”. Are they better than the adaptation on Breadtopia: for Traditional Wholegrain Sourdough? I didn’t have the 2 breads side by side, but I don’t think they are that different. I had a lot of fun experimenting and will keep going and maybe do a side by side. There are some other recipes in the book to try and also some unique recipes for using any stale bread.

Overall, I think I will eventually use up the stiff starter and continue as I was with a liquid starter. The liquid is easier and since I did not notice a taste difference, I’ll go with easy

But the book … if you enjoy reading about bakeries and history and bread … just reading the book is wonderful. There is also a “tips for Poilane Sourdough” which had some great tips for all sourdough baking, including the why: shaping, slicing, understanding the process and how the dough should feel, storing options. My personal rating is 5 of 5 stars!

***edit … I forgot … one thing that the book did not address was French flour vs U.S. flour vs other flours. Per some of my reading, French AP flour is milled finer and other differences. I did back of overall flour by 40 grams: 20 white and 20 whole wheat.

[Fermentada (Melissa)]

Those loaves look great. After I made panettone, I used up my stiff starter (50% h2o) in regular bread. I liked it but old habits die hard and mixing more liquid starter is bit faster. Next time I travel with starter, though, I’ll bring a nice unspillable low hydration blob instead of a liquid starter.

I can’t imagine taking over a big business at that age and while grieving the loss of parents. The book and Apollonia’s story sound quite amazing.

p.s. Here’s Apollonia’s avocado banana with lime juice on 50% yecora rojo sourdough toast

[anon66425146]

Hee!!! I’m glad you had a try with the avocado toast. Avocado toast discussions seem to be as polarizing as politics and religion

That is a great thought to use the stiff starter for travelling … I had not thought of that!

The yecoro rojo is on my list to try with my next Breadtopia flour order.

[anon44372566]

Low hydration preferments are very good for weak flours

[Tallahassee]

Thank you Liz for this fantastic review!!! I baked the Breadtopia version of this bread and loved it!

[brent.roberts]

If you really want to try something bordering on insane you can order some of their breads from there web site and they will ship direct to you and you will have it within about 48 of baking. Some folks think breads peak in flavours about 2 days after they are baked. We tried it for an early Christmas family dinner and got a box full of their specials. Cost about $ 100 extra for the air shipment and it was the highlight of the dinner. Real fresh French breads.

We got quite an assortment

[anon44372566]

I think there’s a Poliane bakery in London. I’m going to have to try their breads. Interesting thread and lovely bakes.

[le_avion]

Would the French flour be similar to the Italian “00” flour? They sound similar, finer and lower on protein. I found this chart Understanding flour types that claims so. It also claims that it is similar to the US pastry flour.

[anon66425146]

@Tallahassee Beautiful bake!

@brent.roberts In the head notes for the recipe: Traditional whole grain sourdough on this site, @eric writes of ordering from Poilane for his birthday (bread-day). That bit was my original introduction to Poilane. WOW, you did order an assortment. I would like to try and compare and probably will at some point. As Eric noted, it is “cheaper than a trip to Paris”

@anon44372566 There is a post on this site: British Bread Adventures Pt 4. Eric and his wife, Denyce visited the London Poilane and there is some video in the post of part of the baking process. Their question about what the baker answers with regard to the yeast is answered (I believe) in the cookbook … the stiff starter or something similar that they (Poilane) make into cubes, kept in the refrigerator.

@le_avion I think you are correct. I read a number of articles that noted exactly what you said. I’m thinking to try Breadtopia’s Tipo00. Thanks for the link! I also found that Amazon has a brand called “Francine” Francine French AP Wheat flour and it looks like they carry other varieties. I’m sure Breadtopia’s 00 will be significantly more fresh, though.

RE the stiff starter. Although the book says to feed it every day you are not baking, I treated mine like my 100% starter … refreshed the day before baking (I often bake with my 100% cold from frig). But yesterday, after 4 days in the refrigerator without being fed, I fed both the stiff and my normal and they bubbled up at the same time. I didn’t expect the stiff (about 70% hydration) to keep up. Poilane recipe Rye with currants is in process today! Based on how fast the stiff starter responded to a feed, I am fairly sure I can use it cold as well. So… I may keep both going for a bit and see what differences I see in bakes.

[Fermentada (Melissa)]

I printed out a Poilane rye with currants recipe when I saw it in an article about her new book. It was yeast-leavened. Are you doing yeast? Did you convert to sourdough? Or is the cookbook version sourdough? Not a burning question lol just curious

[anon66425146]

The book recipe uses the stiff starter (a fair amount) AND yeast. I omitted the yeast as after 6 feedings, the stiff starter is plenty robust (IMO ). The first sourdough bakes, I subbed my 100% starter for the yeast. Anyway, here is the Rye with currants baked last evening, cut into this morning.

I think the bulk was about 7 hours, then 1.5-2 hours in the pan before baking. The book recipe with yeast suggests much faster times with the yeast. I don’t think this was bad considering how much rye in the recipe … from memory I think 450 g to 231 g white/ww starter and the starter is about 70%.

I think you can use your 100% starter for the yeast and back out flour and water accordingly with no issues.

[anon44372566]

I was looking at the Poliane Bakery online yesterday and it turns out they have two in London. I think one is a bakery and the other is a bakery/cafe. While browsing through their breads I did see the rye raisin bread and thought that looks delicious and would love to try it. You’ve done it justice Liz. Looks great!

Would it be OK if you shared your recipe and method?

[Fermentada (Melissa)]

@anon66425146 That looks delicious!! Thanks for the info.

@anon44372566 Here’s the article that published the recipe

'Food For The Soul': Apollonia Poilâne Shares Secrets From Her Family's...

[anon44372566]

Thanks Melissa

[anon66425146]

Yes, Thank you for the link Melissa! The recipe in the link is exactly the same as in the book. The only change I made was omitting the active dry yeast. I used Breadtopia’s bolted rye. I found a section on ingredients in the book and Apollonia says that she used KAF for white and wheat flours and Bob’s Red Mill for other whole grains … in the books recipes for American home bakers. BRM has several rye flours. She does not specify except for stating that at Poilane Bakery they use a “very special rye” … arggh. I found some info on rye and just like with white flours there are grades of fineness. BRM sells a “light rye” as does KAF. I have no complaints about my results but my loaf does appear darker.

@anon44372566 I envy you being able to go to both the bakery and bakery/café! The book notes some of the café offerings and they sound wonderful! Recipes in the book so I will have a go at them.

I have made Bread Granola from the book … basically typical granola but using coarse bread crumbs instead of oatmeal in addition to a puffed grain (rice or other). I used some of my cranberry - walnut bread and although originally skeptical, like it better than the oatmeal version.

So … that bread tabbouleh in the article (and book) is on my list now also

***Edit Kind of crazy … I don’t buy cookbooks normally. I bought a few when I first moved from “traditional kneaded” to no knead to sourdough … but since, not. Something really resonated with me about the Poilane story and maybe just timing in my life.

[anon44372566]

My aim is to try this recipe tomorrow. Over the past couple of days I’ve taken a little of my 125% hydration whole rye starter and have been converting it to a 65% hydrated whole wheat starter. I do believe a firm starter is technically 65% hydration and lower. An all bread flour firm starter can be as low as 40% ish hydration but because I don’t really use bread flour anymore (sticking to whole grains) I’ve gone for 65% hydration. The recipe doesn’t state what hydration theirs is and from a video I’ve seen Poilane did mention maintaining a starter old dough style. So I think its somewhat flexible. So I did one build and made a bread with it. This is a 100% whole wheat with 400g flour, 20% firm starter, 2% salt. I autolysed the flour at 65% hydration with the salt! overnight. I added the salt as in extended autolyses the salt is often added, although not strictly done with autolyse, so as not to have any unwanted spontaneous fermentation. Made it 65% hydrated so I could add the starter then take some off to build for my next recipe so this now old dough style starter remains the same hydration. Took off 33g after I combined the starter and dough and allowed that to mature for the next build. Then I added extra water till the dough felt right and added lots of seeds. Namely pumpkin, linseed, sunflower and sesame.

To this 33g of firm starter I did the following feed, about three hours ago, in preparation for the recipe tomorrow…

Step 2 : Prepare 230g Firm Levain (Saturday Evening)

• 33g firm starter (from above) (27.73%)
• 78g water (65.55%)
• 119g whole wheat flour (100%)

Here is the starter…

My only concern now is it seems to be very active and its far along in just 3 hours despite the large feed. Firm starters were popular before refrigeration as they needed less feeding and often they’re just fed every 24 hours. I’m not ready to start this recipe for another 8-9 hours. I’m concerned that if I leave it overnight it will peak and fall. Question is if it’ll be OK and still fine to add to the dough should this happen.

What say you?

UPDATE: …and here it is one hour later. I’m going to refrigerate it. I’m interested to know why this feed of 1:3.5 (ish) will clearly peak before the usual recommended timings that’s given, and experienced with, for liquid starters. Especially when these firm starters were done so to be able to feed less. Even if a starter peaks and falls insure there’s plenty of life in it left to be used. If so, then why do we use peaking as the ultimate guide?

[anon66425146]

If I take starter out of the frig and feed, it usually rises and then starts falling 4-6 hours later. I often use cold from the frig starter and this morning started the “Poilane style sourdough” (first loaves at the beginning of this post) with cold “firm” starter. I was thinking that at 3-5 hours there would be some activity and it would be close to bedtime so I’d refrigerate then. BUT, it was pretty active 2 hours in so stuck it right in the frig. We’ll see.

As noted above, I warmed and fed both the stiff (I’m thinking mine is about 70% so maybe not technically a stiff starter?) and my 100% white flour hydration and they both rose and fell at nearly the same time… about 4.5 hours. And my kitchen is 62-64F so not really warm.

I made the stiff starter from the book which starts with a yogurt-flour-water mix, then feedings of flour-water. I don’t feel I can write exactly as I didn’t modify anything so … copyright. I’m maintaining by feeding 100 g white, 42 g whole wheat and 100 g water to whatever I’ve got left after a bake. Not very scientific hydration % wise

Well, I think the thing about peak and fall is that if a starter does that “reliably” after a feed, you do have an indication that it is viable. BUT, as I along with others are using cold unfed starter and @homebreadbaker for one is using a very small amount of cold, unfed … a bit of starter with some food to wake it up and a willingness to maybe go for a longer bulk …I think there are many options.

I made my 100% starter about 4 years ago from “scratch” with water and flour … discard half, feed. I think it was maybe 4 days until it was bubbly although at the time, I thought the process very mysterious and waited per instruction for 7 days to bake with it.

[anon44372566]

Fresh out the oven.

The starter was 100% whole wheat at 65% hydration. Come the morning I took it out the fridge and it was still domed. Left out the added yeast so its a pure sourdough.the bulk ferment went on longer but the final proof was quicker. This was quite a low hydration dough for a rye and it held its peak well. Perhaps I bulk fermented beyond what the recipe was asking for but with it now being 100% sourdough and the recipe only giving timings but no visual indication I just waited till it was well risen and showing cracks. Was scared to over proof after shaping as rye can seem risen on top but can sink in the middle. Ended up being a 1hr 20 minute final proof. I ended up using 150g raisins + 100g walnuts. As it was it seemed an awful lot of raisins even with reducing the amount. Perhaps currants are smaller? Which the recipe asks for!

Anyhow the aroma was amazing while baking. Won’t cut into it for a day or two as I still have bread left from the past bake and rye improves over 48 hours.

BTW the bake I did before this one with the first firm starter build turned out absolutely delicious. I’ve kept some firm starter going. So now I have a liquid rye starter and another “old dough” style.

[anon66425146]

Looks great!

Currants are smaller and I used the entire weight in the recipe … and it seemed like a lot of currants as I was dealing with the dough, but ended up ok.

[anon44372566]

Thank you Liz. And thank you for bringing this recipe to my attention. Hope my crumb turns out as nice as yours.