mini Miche
With all the talk on the forum lately about miche and how wonderful the are, I participated and made several 1.5Kg miches. They were wonderful. However these huge loaves were a lot of bread for the two of us. We cut them up and froze sections and defrosted and heated for each meal. This worked nicely. But I couldn't help thinking that a smaller size would be much more aesthetic and useful at dinner time.
So, I plugged into my formula the numbers for 8 400g loaves to make 8 mini miches. (how cute) Here they are. See the ruler at the bottom of the photo. They average 6" in diameter.
The other two are in the oven.
3.2 Kg of bread in 400 g units. I am sure I have violated some French rule that says miche must be a certain Kg. You must remember however, that in 1533 Catherine de Medici left Italy to become queen of France. Concerned about the food she would receive in France she took with her cooks and recipes. Thus, the French learned how to cook. So, whatever the French know about baking they got from the Italians.
Smart lady.
Would a mini miche not be a michelie? Cute loaves!
I will argue until I'm blue but a large miche has a better taste than a bunch of smaller ones. The baking is slightly different and so is the moisture distribution.
Today I froze a one kilo wedge from a 4 kilo loaf. I let it stand one day inside plastic and then sliced the bread when the moisture had distributed back into the crust. I swiped one slice and it was heavenly. The smaller loaves with the same dough tend to be too dry before and after freezing. Don't know about regs, but a kilo is still a kilo and that is the most common way to buy open bread. If I had a choice in a bakery to buy a whole 500g loaf or a quarter of a 2kg Miche, I take the 1/4 hands down!
Mini
A mini miche would be a michealette.
Just the kind of response I expected.
I suspected that there was something magical about size. (Disappointingly I guess size does matter). They taught us "mass affect" at SFBI and that "400g is the least amount of starter to keep". The instructor said 500g is the least amout he keeps."
A salute to Cathrina di Medici.