In the last days, the weather was warm and sunny and it finally feels like real spring. The first trees started to flower and the leaves will develop soon and the world will be green once again. And already the first fresh herbs can be found in garden and forest, like wild garlic, ground elder  and salad burnet. Blended together this herbs yields an aromatic paste which adds a great flavour to this crusty bread and turns the crumb slightly green.

As preferment I used a poolish. A poolish is made with the same amount of water and flour and a tiny little bit of yeast. It rise for 14-16 hours and has to used while its surface is still doomed. In contrast to a biga, which is really forgiving when used half a day later then planned, a poolish has only a limited time window in which it can be used. After that it starts to degrade and collapse.  But it helps the dough to rise well and adds a mild, complex flavour.  The name poolish comes from the polish bakers who brought this kind of dough to France in former times. Here he is used often for baguette dough.

The dough of our bread is softer and more sticky then the last one (we increase now slowly the difficulty) but it will not be kneaded but folded instead. First, the ingredients are shortly stirred together and then are allowed to rest for a while. During this time the water is absorbed by the flour and the gluten proteins are hydrated. They start to build disulfid bridges between each other which is the start of gluten network. At the same time some of these bridges are destroyed again by enzymes from the flour. This processes makes it easier to knead the dough and to develop the gluten network. In the second step the dough is stretched and folded from the side of the bowl into the middle to develop the dough. This enhance the gluten network and helps to obtain a more open crumb.

Wild Spring Herbs Bread

yields 2 breads of 400g

Poolish

• 100g flour Type 550
• 100g Water
• 0,5g fresh yeast

Wild Herb Pesto

• 25g wild garlic
• 15g ground elder
• some Lovage leaves
• 1 sorrel leave
• 10g salad burnet
• 3g Salt
• 15g olive oil

Teig

• Poolish
• 400g flour Type 550
• 200g Water
• Wild Herb Pesto
• 8g yeast
• 7g Salt

In the meantime prepare the Herb paste: puree everything in the food processor.

Mix all ingredients until combined and let it rest for 20min (autolysis). Now fold the dough from the outside of bowl into the middle for three or four times. Let rest for 20 min again, then fold the dough again. The dough is now soft and still a little bit sticky.

Let it rise for 1 hour.

Flour the countertop and carefully turn the dough on it. Try not to degas it.  Divide the dough lengthwise with a dough scrapper in two pieces. Gently stretch it to a lenth of 25 cm and twist the bread two times on each site. Place on a baking tray.

Proof for 35 min.

In the meantime preheat the oven to 250°C.

Bake the bread for 10 min at 250°C with steam, then turn the heat down to 200°C and bake for another 25 min.