Updates!
Happy February! We’ve got a fun little theme to tell you about this month. Starting with this post, all of our February recipes will start with the letter “F”. Definitely a random and silly theme, yes, but it helps us get creative. And then we can develop new recipes outside of our comfort zone and share them with you!
Since we’re now on our sixth month of running this blog, we also figured we should introduce ourselves a bit more. I’m Emma, and I usually write the blog posts and social media posts. My sister Sofie works on the photography, image editing, and design for the site. We both bake and develop the recipes, but not together, since we live in different cities. Generally, we split the recipes half and half. But, I personally prefer working with yeasted dough, so I usually make the bread, rolls, and some of the pastries. Sofie likes making the more technical recipes that use lots of butter, so she does lots of pastries and cookies.
Today’s Recipe
Today’s recipe is for fuldkornsbrød (whole wheat bread). This bread is fluffy and soft, and tastes absolutely delicious. It’s also pretty simple to make, although it does require some patience, like most bread recipes do. The recipe I (Emma) developed uses a technique called a poolish. A poolish is a pre-ferment or starter that gives the bread a more developed flavor and better texture. I learned about it from the phenomenal book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice*, (this is an affiliate link) which my older brother got me for Christmas. I’ve been trying tons of Peter Reinhart’s recipes over the past month, and have learned a lot. I would highly recommend the book as a starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about bread-baking.
Check out the book here:
*the above link is an affiliate link. As an Amazon associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Anyway, when I developed this recipe, I also made a loaf that didn’t use a poolish. I wanted to compare the two, to see if the poolish method was really worth it. I made the other loaf using the direct yeast method, which is the so-called “normal” method for making bread. You add the full amount of yeast directly to the dough from the start, knead, let it double in size, shape the loaf, let it rise again, then bake. I still ended up with a delicious loaf of bread, but the poolish loaf was fluffier and tasted better. So, I decided that even though using a poolish takes a bit longer, it’s a great method. Especially for whole wheat bread, which can sometimes turn out dense because the flour has less gluten. And so I incorporated it into the recipe!
The recipe is pretty easy to follow, but again, just be patient. The night before you plan to bake your bread, you will want to mix your poolish. You have to let this ferment until it gets bubbly (2-3 hours), then put it into the fridge overnight. Take it out 1 hour before you plan to mix your dough.
Then, you mix the poolish with the rest of the dough ingredients and knead for 10-12 mins. Let this rise until it doubles in size and passes the poke test. Shaping a sandwich loaf is pretty easy – just spread it into a rectangle with your fingers and roll it up. But make sure there aren’t any gaps in the dough (or else you’ll have random holes in your loaf!). Also, make sure to pinch any creases together and roll the loaf against the countertop to create surface tension. Let the dough rise again, then bake! And then eat 🙂
Fuldkornsbrød (Whole Wheat Bread)
Ingredients
POOLISH (PRE-FERMENT)
- 75 grams (1/2 cup) all purpose or bread flour
- 1/8 tsp instant yeast (1/4 tsp active dry yeast or 2g fresh yeast)
- 75 ml (1/2 cup) water (room temperature)
DOUGH
- All the poolish (should be about 150-160g)
- 1.5 tsp instant yeast (2 tsp active dry yeast or 14g fresh yeast)
- 100 ml (1/2 cup) milk
- 100 ml (1/2 cup) water
- 80 grams (a little over 1/2 cup) sunflower seeds
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 200 grams (1 1/2 cups) whole wheat flour
- 100 grams (3/4 cup) all purpose or bread flour (you may need up to 75 grams more if your dough is too sticky)
Instructions
- Mix together the poolish ingredients until the mixture looks like thick pancake batter. Leave this to ferment for 2-3 hours at room temperature or in a warm place (in the oven with the light on or on the proof setting should work). Once the mixture gets pretty bubbly (see picture below), put it in the fridge immediately and leave to ferment overnight. If you are making the poolish on the same day as the bread, leave it to ferment at room temperature for a bit longer (3-4 hours), then mix the dough. (But leaving it in the fridge overnight will give the final bread a better flavor, so we would recommend that!)
- The next day, take the poolish out of the fridge 1 hour before mixing the dough. Let it come to room temperature (it should get even more bubbly as it warms up).
- After waiting 1 hour, mix together the poolish and the rest of the dough ingredients (quick tip: use a wet spatula/dough scraper/hand to handle the sticky poolish). Add more bread/all-purpose flour if the dough is too sticky. Knead for 10-12 minutes until very smooth and elastic.
- Cover and let the dough proof for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size and passes the poke test (the dough should NOT spring back immediately when poked, should spring back slightly but leave an indentation).
- Oil a loaf pan (or line with parchment paper if you’re like us and your loaf pans are the opposite of non-stick).
- To shape the sandwich loaf, dump the dough out on a clean surface. Using your hands, stretch it out into a rectangle, with a width equivalent to the size of your loaf pan.
- Start rolling from one end, keeping the roll very tight.
- Once you have rolled it up, pinch together any creases and roll the loaf against the countertop lightly to create surface tension and help close the crease on the bottom of the loaf.
- Place the loaf in the pan and cover, letting this rise for another hour, or until doubled in size and passes the poke test again. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C).
- Bake the loaf for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is a light golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when you tap it.
- Let cool at least 20 minutes before slicing. Enjoy!
I am giving this a 5star rating because though I do bake bread, I have never been good a Whole Wheat versions. It is always eatable….just not what I want it to taste like and the texture isn’t always great. I have not used a Poolish before. All said, my bread was pretty great! I used White Whole Wheat and all purpose flour. I had to add more flour than you suggested, but maybe my flour wasn’t the right kind. I am not sure if it was the Poolish or the instruction, both were great. Thank you!
Hi! We are so happy to hear that it turned out well 🙂 A poolish is a life-saver when it comes to whole wheat bread! Yes, it’s normal to have to add some more flour and it could be due to lots of different factors. For example, I find that when I knead bread by hand, I always use a lot of extra flour, probably because my hands warm up the dough, whereas a stand mixer doesn’t do the same. Anyway, thanks for the kind review and for using our recipe!