Pain Paillasse

I have decided to revive our old food blog. I will probably not do a whole lot of posting since what my sister and I eat is pretty basic due to our busy schedules. But I though it would be nice to use it as sort of a collection of recipes. And I am hoping that a certain someone will bake more bread and post the results here :-)

So, last weekend I made Pain Paillasse. It's a really nice bread that Dan and I ate while in Switzerland. It is very popular there and so far I haven't seen it anywhere else.
The recipe took three days but didn't actually involve a lot of active work. It is a very wet dough and since I have never before really handled dough like that, it was quite a learning experience.
I was really pleased with the finished result. The crust was really crunchy, the crumb had a lot of air pockets but was nice and chewy. The only thing I would do differently, is to slightly increase the salt content. I'm also thinking that next time I will use some whole wheat flour to make it taste more interesting.



Preferment
45 g prefermented dough, diverted from your last bread dough or make a new one as follows:
55 g flour
35 g water
0,5 g fresh yeast (I used instant yeast)
0,5 g salt

Levain:
60 g flour
30 g water
45 g prefermented dough

Final dough:
400 g flour
280 g water
3 g fresh yeast (I used 2g of instant yeast)
9 g salt
Levain

Preferment: Mix all ingredients together, knead and divide in half. Put one half (45 g) in the fridge. The one in the fridge add to your dough next time your baking (can be stored up to 2 days). Before using let it get back to room temperature.
I made only half the amount and that worked perfectly.
Cover and let rise at room temperature for about 8-12 hours.

Levain: Mix and knead well all ingredients, cover an let rise overnight (9-15 hours) at room temperature. I let it rise for about 19 hours and don't think that hurt it at all.

Final dough: Mix flour and 260 g of water for 5 minutes, cover and let rest for 30 minutes (autolyse). With the rest of the water (20 g) dissolve fresh yeast. After the autolyse add dissolved yeast, levain and salt and mix for 15 minutes. Cover and let rest for 2 1/2 hours, then give it a fold, cover and let rise 1 1/2 hour.

Preheat oven to 240 C.

Remove dough carefully from the bowl. The dough is really soft. Take a hold of the two ends of the dough and twist them. If you want to make two smaller loaves, cut the dough into two pieces lengthwise and twist.

The loaf doesn't need to rest anymore, so bake it immediately for 30 minutes, after 15 minutes quickly open oven door to release steam.

See the recipe and instructions here.