Another Failed Attempt with Nancy Silverton's Dough 11/22/2011

Well, even after I tamed the beast of the high hydration dough and thought I left the preferment for the Nancy Silverton bubble enough, the results of my attempt were disappointing.  The dough was left out to warm-up for the better part of Tuesday.  There almost wasn’t any rise or fermentation going on in the dough.  The dough ball was easy to open with no stickiness, but when baked in the oven, there was hardly any oven spring.  The taste of the crust was also bland.  It makes me wonder if the yeast in the preferment was almost depleted, since there was almost no oven spring and a bland taste in the crust.  I had wondered before why no yeast would be added to the final dough, but now it even makes me wonder more, if yeast would have been used in the final dough if better results would have been achieved.  I had thought there is usually some kind of yeast added to a final dough when a preferment is used, but this formulation doesn’t call for any yeast to be added in the final dough, unless it would be modified.  I sure can’t figure out if I didn’t mix the dough right, let the dough ferment longer, or maybe execute the formula right, or might have done something else wrong.

Norma