It started with an Einkorn Poolish

It started with an Einkorn Poolish.  What was I thinking?   Should drink my morning coffee first before doing this.  Desperate to try out my new crown cane banneton, threw the last of my Einkorn flour onto the scale, 138 grams.  Matched that with equal weights of water. Whoops! A tad too much, no biggie, Einkorn loves to soak up water if given the time and gee whiz, only 10 extra grams.  Then found a 7 g package of instant yeast, tore open and tapped in a gram or two saving the rest for later.  Stir, cover and forget for the rest of the morning while I enjoy my coffee and get into my day.   

As I poked and prodded my Einkorn Poolish over the course of the morning, it reminded me just how sticky Einkorn dough can be.  I hope it works out.  I slipped a small hot freshly peeled boiled potato into the bowl, along the side, warm things up a bit around 10 am.   Rising nicely and doubling which it doesn't have to do but looks like an afternoon bake.  Around noon, grated the potatoes and stirred it into the poolish.  What a mess to clean the spoon!

Around 2 pm I did my maths.  Let's see....  at least 750g dough.  A two-three water to flour recipe would be 300g H2O to 450g flour.... subtract the poolish and get my water and flour weights for 66.6% hydration.  Add the potatoe and it should be in the 500g range for figuring 2% salt.  (Used 8g table salt.)   I decided on AP flour, no bread flour in cupboard.  Hey, did discover I had two kinds of spelt flour from the same manufacturer, one sifted "white" and the other whole flour.  The carb. and fiber contents are very different.  

Two o'clock mixed up the dough with rest yeast and after half an hour rest, used wet hands to knead shaggy dough into smooth dough. Still sticking and wondering if the dividing and shaping will be just as sticky.  After another half hour of sitting, turned out onto a lightly AP floured bench and no problem dividing with a bench scraper as long as the cut edges got a little flour on them in the process.  Six balls at  approx 120g each and one seventh ball with 145g.  That's how it came out from original instructions of 100g each with one at 150g.  20 min rest under a damp towel.  Rolling out large ball into a disk, draping well floured banneton, reshaping other balls and spacing around middle.  Cutting hump into a 6 point star and pressing points onto each ball to secure.  Dusted a little bit around the edges with raw sesame seeds.  Let proof under damp towel on rack.  Oven 220° C with steam pan baked on heavy pre-heated pizza pan.  Fine soft crumb with a crusty yummy loaf.  

Reflecting back on flattening and draping the heavier dough ball,  it could have been a smaller disk with less dough spread out at the bottom of the banneton.  Seeds would have to be rolled into outside surface before draping.   You can see I almost covered the bottom.  There is so little room at the bottom of this banneton.  Not sure if I like the looks of the cane lines as compared to a smooth cloth lined form at the Wild Yeast Blog

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/shape-crown-couronne/?style=print