Sandwich bread

This dough was started last night with cold water and 1/4 the customary yeast and all of the salt. This is to handicap the dough for a very slow start.

But that never works. It always takes off in about an hour.

The dough is not punched down. Rather,  knife is jabbed along the side of the bowl to loosen the dough from the bowl without any flour to prevent the dough from sticking again.

With fingers dampened the top edge is pulled upward and over to form a new top. The bowl rotated by 1/4 circle. The top edge pulled upward again and over to form a new top. Patty cake style. 

The dough rises again and that pulling and folding activity is repeated. Now there is a stack of 8 additional layers and the dough has been stretched nicely and the yeast redistributed very well.

The dough rises again but it is too tight to do the whole cardinal points bit. So it is folded in half. Then the opposite side pulled the same way and folded on top as before. This last turn is only one half of one of these cardinal points rotation, enough to fit the dough into the baking pan.

The dough grew very nicely ↓.

I understood why Italian bakers produce this Poolish starter then mix it with fresh dough made the usual way the next morning. 

This takes a long time. Much longer than with a regular dose of dry yeast. By mixing half and half then the baker has the best of both worlds; the character of slowness overnight and the convenience of regular speed the next day.

This bread is fun to make. Everyone should try my new way. Then the whole world would revert to our older more solid bread making ways.