Source: Jacob Burton | |||
Prep time: 30 minutes | Cooking time: 30 minutes | Total time: 1 hour |
This European style brown bread is hearty, complex of flavor, and most importantly, delicious. If you need a mid day "pick me up," this bread will give you a surprising boost of energy and sustain you between meals. If you decide to make it a meal in itself, this brown bread is great plain, served with gravlax (cured salmon), toasted and spread with honey butter, and was used to make the most delicious egg salad sandwich I have ever eaten. This recipe calls for a poolish sourdough starter for added flavor and to stand up to the acidity of the other ingredients that give this bread recipe a unique flavor. Please see the "Related" section at the end of this recipe for further information and alternatives to using a sourdough starter.
Alternatives To Using A Poolish Starter
This recipe benefits from the use of a sourdough starter because the natural yeast is much more resilient to acidic bread doughs (created in this recipe by the addition of vinegar, molasses and coffee). If you really don't want to use a poolish starter, mix the sponge ingredients together the night before as instructed in step one, but add an extra 50g of bread flour and 50g of water along with 2g of instant or active dry yeast. Allow to ferment overnight and continue recipe as instructed.