Kansas Poolish Focaccia

Yesterday was a snow day in the Greater KC area, a good day to shovel snow, bake some bread, make some of my industrial red sauce, and eat spaghetti. The Knob Creek bourbon on the rocks at 5PM after shoveling seemed appropriate as well.

I baked this bread in a 10" pie pan though in retrospect, I think I'd have been better served using either a 1/2 sheet pan  or using some parchment paper on the baking stone. There was too much dough for the pan but that's the lesson learned yesterday.  

I used Western Family bread flour on this project, something I found in Jackson, WY. It seems to be weak as a bread flour goes but the soft resultant dough worked well enough for a casual bake such as a flat bread. It also tasted good enough that the neighborhood birds didn't have a chance to try any.  

Poolish
75 g Western Family bread flour
25 g white whole wheat flour
100 g water at 90F
1/8 tsp (.63 ml) active dry yeast

Main Dough
140 g WF bread flour
68 g water at 90F
1/2 tsp  (2.5 ml) active dry yeast
5 g kosher salt
All of poolish
Sea salt and grated parmesan (optional) to sprinkle on top
In the first edition of J Hamelman's "Bread" is a formula for ciabatta at about the same hydration and almost identical ingredients so that's another direction for me to investigate the next time I want to serve spaghetti.

We also had some rare visitors here during the snow storm. A flock of blackbirds, numbering 20 or so, landed and stayed in our pear tree which is just outside my window here. They didn't seem interested in the food in and on the ground below the feeders but did eat some of the remaining pods on the pear tree. Blackbirds are native and year round residents in this region but  I haven't seen any at the feeders since we put up them up. They didn't return this morning but I'll be looking for them on Monday and Tuesday when we may see some more snowfall.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.