I made a simple bread using the recipe from Piotr Kucharski’s book.

Upiekłem prosty chleb, korzystając z przepisu z książki Piotra Kucharskiego.

We’ve got a couple recipes for simple quick yeast breads, there are also some more complex with sourdough. I was missing something in between. There is Rustic bread. Chleb rustykalny., but it requires a couple more ingredients. This one has four, is simple to make and this is why I’m presenting it to you today.

Source: Piotr Kucharski, “Chleb. Domowa Piekarnia” (sources)

Wheat bread on levain

Planning

The levain is quick to make, but you have to wait 12-16 hours. Next mixing the dough, 2-3 hours bulk proof, shaping, 60-90 minutes final proof, 40-45 minutes baking, cooling down.

Ingredients

This is enough for a single loaf around 1 kg in weight.

Levain

• 200 g lukewarm water

• 200 g strong white wheat flour

• 2 g fresh yeast

  

  2 grams of yeast compared to a Pound coin

Dough

• The levain

• 5 g fresh yeast

• 200 g lukewarm water

• 400 g strong white wheat flour

• 10 g salt

  

  Leavened wheat bread

Preparation

1. Crumble the yeast in a bowl, add the water, stir, add the flour, stir

2. Leave for 12-16 hours

3. Crumble the yeast in a bowl, add the water, stir

4. In a bigger bowl mix flour and salt

5. Add the levain and water with yeast

6. In a mixer, using the dough hook, mix for 6-8 minutes. By hand: knead in a bowl until the dough forms it’s structure and starts coming off your hands. In the meantime have a small bowl with water to dip your hand from time to time. Don’t take water from it to add to the dough, but don’t worry about your hand being too wet. You’re dipping it so that the dough doesn’t stick to it

7. When it’s ready, leave for 2-3 hours to proof. The dough must at least double it’s volume. If it triples or more, it’s also OK

8. Shape a loaf. I put it in a basket, the author left it on a floured baking tray. Make sure you cover it so that  it doesn’t get too dry during the 60-90 minutes final proof

   

   Shaping an oval loaf

9. Set your oven to 220 C degrees without a fan and 200 C degrees with a fan. Know your oven

   

   Ready to bake

10. Score the loaf so that it opens in a controlled way, add steam to your oven and bake for 40-45 minutes

11. Leave to cool down

Well, it isn’t Boulangerie Poilâne really. The bread was baked in the evening and in the morning was very soft, like a big roll. But it did crack nicely when cooling down 🙂

Wheat bread on levain – the crumb

It’s very delicate, I was tempted to add some rye flour to it. I think it is a good recipe for someone who would like to try making something leavened, but only has the basic ingredients. I will however stay with the sourdough.