Christopsomos - Greek Celebration Bread: The Apprentice Begins

I love making bread. For my first real venture into The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I've decided to make Greek Celebration Bread. It's the third picture down in the link provided. The bread has all the lovely spices from the Middle East/far eastern Mediterranean that I am just beginning to have so much appreciation for like cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg.

The bread includes not only commercial yeast, but a sour dough-like starter called poolish. The poolish is basically flour, water and a bit of yeast set out to ferment for 4 hours and then used in the recipe. He calls this a wild-yeast starter. Here is an exciting and titillating picture of my poolish.

Wish me luck. Tomorrow will tell if my bread is a success.