bread started from a "biga"
(1 rating)
Unlike a sourdough starter, a biga is a fresh starter made the night before you intend to make bread. Biga is Italian; the French equivalent is poolish. As with anything bread, there are literally hundreds of recipes and learned discussions of these fresh bread starters on the web. This is my simple experiment that resulted in a wonderful light white bread.
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(1 rating)
yield
1 large loaf, two small loaves or 8-12 rolls
prep time
15 Hr
cook time
1 Hr
Ingredients For bread started from a "biga"
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--for the biga--
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1 cbread flour
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1 Tbspcourse salt or 2 teaspoons table salt
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1 pkgfast rising yeast
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1 cwater
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--to complete the bread--
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3 to 4 cbread flour (increase or decrease as needed)
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1 cwater
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2 Tbspolive oil
How To Make bread started from a "biga"
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110-12 hours before you intend to make the bread (longer if the room is cold), start the biga by stirring together the first four ingredients in a large bread bowl.
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2Cover with plastic wrap and allow the biga to sit at room temperature for 10-12 hours. It will double in size and be full of holes, looking similar to the raw side of a pancake ready to be flipped.
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3Stir 3 cups of flour and the second cup of water into the biga until a raggy mass develops. Flop this onto a well floured counter and knead (push and fold) about 100 strokes, add flour as needed to keep it from sticking to your hands and the counter. Try to add as little flour as possible. Too dry a dough results in heavy bread.
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4Form the dough into a ball. Put 1 tablespoon of oil into the bread bowl and roll the ball of dough in it to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and put someplace warm and still to rise. An oven with the light on is a good rising environment. Allow to rise about 2 hours until doubled in size.
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5Punch the dough down, knead briefly and form into one large loaf, two small loafs, or rolls. The pictured loaves were made in a French bread pan lined with parchment paper.
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6Allow the formed loaves to rise another hour or until doubled in size.
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7Preheat the oven to 350F. Brush the risen loaves with the other tablespoon of olive oil. Bake about one hour. Longer for a large load, less time for rolls. As ovens differ, you will want to check the bread for doneness by rapping it on the bottom with your knuckle. It should sound hollow. If it thuds, cook ten more minutes and check again.
- Last Step: Don't forget to share! Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!
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