The Fresh Loaf

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Pain au Levain 36 Hour Sourdough Horseshoe Miche

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Pain au Levain 36 Hour Sourdough Horseshoe Miche

Following up on the success I had with the 36 hour Durum Semolina SD bread I made last week I wanted to try a Pain au Levain version and see if I could get similar results.

I have been waiting for the right bread to use my new square-shaped cake pan with a middle column.  Unfortunately this didn't really work the way I hoped and instead of a square loaf with a hole in the middle I ended up with a horseshoe-shaped loaf and a pretty big one at that!

Using this time intensive 36 hours plus technique I learned from TxFarmer's blog posts I have to say I was very happy with the final result. The dough was again nice and silky to work.  The crumb was nice and open with a nice crisp and dark crust.  The taste from the sprouted whole wheat in the levain along with the spelt in the final dough provided a nice earthy and nutty flavor to this bread.

Directions

Starter Build 1

30 grams Seed Starter (Mine is a 65% White AP starter)

22 grams Spouted Whole Wheat or Regular Whole Wheat Flour

38 grams French Style Flour (KAF or AP Flour)

60 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.    If your kitchen is warmer than mine which is usually about 70-72 degrees with my air-conditioning you can proceed sooner.

Starter Build 2

All Starter from Build #1:

100 grams French Style Flour

37 grams Sprouted Whole Wheat

100 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around  4 - 6 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.    If your kitchen is warmer than mine which is usually about 70-72 degrees with my air-conditioning you can proceed sooner.

Main Dough Ingredients

300 grams  Starter  from above (note: you should have a small amount left over)

150 grams Whole Spelt Flour

700 grams French Style Flour (KAF)

20 grams Seas Salt or Table Salt

590 Ice Water

Procedure

Mix the flour and the ice water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

The next day add your starter and salt to the dough and mix by hand until it is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed.  Due to the high water content in the 100% hydration starter this dough is very easy to mix by hand and is very silky and smooth.

Bulk rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours until it grows around 1/3 in volume doing stretch and folds every half hour until it has developed the correct amount of strength.

Put the dough back into the refrigerator for around 20-24 hours.  I took it out about 20 hours later.

When you take the dough out of the refrigerator you want it to have almost doubled in volume.  Mine only rose about 1/3 in volume.  Let it rise at room temperature for around 2 hours or until the dough has doubled from the night before.

Next, divide the dough and shape as desired.  I made a battard and placed it in my square pan.

Cover the dough with a moist towel and let sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Score as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 45 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 450 degrees.    When both loaves are golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 205 degrees F. you can remove them from the oven.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an 3 hours or so before eating as desired.

Be sure to visit my other blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com for all of my recipes.

Comments

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Nice crumb!  Looks very sourdough-like.  I am currently enjoying my weekend sourdough bake and your crumb looks a lot like mine, so I am sure you are experiencing some good bread stuffs.

Good job :)

John

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks John.

Appreciate the kind words.

Regards,
Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

this bread in the pan.  Came out great out of the pan.  Love the crust and crumb - just about perfect or not far from it.  The French, spelt and sprouted WW should make this bread taste fantastic too.  My kind of bread - if it had sprouts or a soaker :-)   So do you like this better than the Semolina bread?  I'm pretty sure I would like this one better  and if it had some semolina......

Nice baking Ian.  You have the big bagel bread down pat and they always look striking.  That and the T- Rex are your signatures from my point of view - of course you have to overlook wild recipe ingredients that work in combination so well to say that too:-)

Always a surprise too. and it is nice to have one now and again.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks DA.   This does taste reall good.  It is different than the Semolina bread and both are equally as good.  I do love semolina so I would lean towards that one though.

I am hoping next time I will make a bread that can fill the pan so I get the square shape.  Have to figure out how to accomplish it, but I will get it down eventually.

Look forward to reading about your experiment soon.

Regards,
Ian

bakingbadly's picture
bakingbadly

For me, it's a great pleasure to see bakers deviating from the norm and shaping their breads in less ordinary styles. Sometimes I even fantasize about breads in exact cubes or spheres, with crust and all--perhaps a near impossibility. So not surprisingly, I was lured to your horseshoe miche.

Anyway, very nice crumb. I hope it taste and smells as good as it looks. :)

Zita

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you Zita.

Appreciate your kind words.

It does taste and smell as good as it looks!

Regards,
Ian

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Very cool Ian,

I'll be buggered if I can work out how you got that dough out of the tin for baking :)

Crumb looks good and I bet it tastes great.

Cheers,
Phil

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks Phil.  I floured and sprayed oil in the pan pretty heavily and cut a hole in the middle of some parchment paper and prayed the dough would come out in one piece :). I was very happy with the crumb and flavor.   Thanks.

Ian