My PR Max Poilane style miche

Well, the other day when I wrote about the Queensland floods, I didn't actually get on to write about that, but that's what came out.  Thank you to those who offered encouragement and hope through your replies.

On Wednesday, after the floods, I baked my bread as I had started it the day before and it needed to be finished.  There was a lot of damage to roads and other infrastructure.  As well, lots of rescue people, emergency services, and local council doing repairs here and we were all advised to stay home if we could, so that they could do their jobs.  So baking bread it was for me.

I had decided on the Max Poilane style miche, however I struck a problem.  As we had been advised to stay home I realised that I didn't have all the ingredients for my loaf.  I didn't have enough wholewheat flour, only about a quarter of what I needed.  I had some wholewheat self-raising flour and some other unbleached bread flour.  I took the risk and used the self-raising flour in the mix, wondering if it would kill my yeast or blow my bread up too much.  Strangely it didn't seem to affect it at all.  My bread turned out so tasty, in fact I think it was the tastiest bread I've ever made to date!  Gorgeously flavoursome with a subtle, sweet wheatyness and chewy texture. 

It's a very big loaf!

With a nice crackly crust.

This is a nice wheaty, chewy bread with an open(ish) crumb.  And I'm not sure if using the small amount of self-raising flour made it a little more open.  I'd love to taste the real thing!