The Fresh Loaf

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Miche Point a Calliere - Take3

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Miche Point a Calliere - Take3

I have recently converted my White Liquid starter into a stiff one, with a 50% whole wheat flour  - 50% AP flour flour mix. I browsed through the bread books, and found that Hamelman’s Miche point a calliere appeals to me, in addition to be a favorite of mine. Miche it was, therefore.

David Snyder has blogged about his Miche too, so I was thrilled to return to this favorite recipe. Although I had no high extraction flour, I decided to use a mix of 45% freshly milled whole wheat, 45% bread flour, and 10% All purpose flour instead. I followed Hamelman’s recipe to the word, except the High extraction flour.The dough was a breeze to work with, despite being sticky at the beginning. 

The flavor of this bread is that of a typical Miche, Fragrant, chewy, and sweet-sour. I have baked this Miche boldly to benefit from the concentrated flavors in the crust. The crumb was slightly moist and chewy.  All in all, this bread is a winner.

Khalid

 

Comments

Juergen Krauss's picture
Juergen Krauss

Khalid.

Amazing translucent crumb, equal crust all around. Perfect.

Juergen

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Yours is just as beautiful. What a coincidence!

evonlim's picture
evonlim

wow.. good bake. thanks for sharing. the pictures of the steps are helpful. have not bake a miche before, everyone that baked said the same thing' great flavour'. must give it a go soon.

thanks again

evon

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Give it a go, Evon, those Miches have a character of their own and you'd be pleased with the way their flavor stand out.

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Beautiful!

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Thanks Floyd!

varda's picture
varda

Two point a calliere miches in the blog back to back.    Amazing crumb.   Yours is awesome.   Now I have to go tell Juergen the same thing.   -Varda

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Yeah, First it was david, then Juergen and I.. A Total conincidence, i had planned for this Miche prior to David's blog.

Thank you Varda, i'm happy you liked it as much as i did.

Alpana's picture
Alpana

I may be repeating others, but perfect is the only word that comes to my mind when I see this miche, Khalid. 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

A bit too perfect actually, the over carmalized edges where somewhat bitter. Oh well, nothing is perfect.

Thank you Alpana, much appreciated.

 

Franko's picture
Franko

Mmmarvelous Miche Point a Calliere Khalid!

One of, if not the best looking example of this bread I've seen to date. Crumb-perfect, crust-perfect, slashing-perfect, a winner indeed. Great work my friend!

Franko

 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Oh, that is so kind of you, Franko. I may have underproofed the loaf, and it burst somewhat at the sides. Scoring, also isn't as David's. However, i believe that the flour mixture that i used really emulated to some extent the high extraction flour.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Khalid..I can't add much from previous comments.   Just bravo!  Beautiful bake.

regards

Ian

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Thanks, Ian! You made my day.

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

...of Hamelman's book.  Profile is just like his (or David Snyders) and probably tastes better (than JH's) owing to your freshly milled flour.  Great flour mix for flavor, generously photo-documented and beautifully baked and scored.  Just the right dark thick crust (for my taste at least) and that creamy, glistening open crumb.  A triumph Khalid!  Inspiring!

Cheers,

Tom

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Yeah i guess i may have aced it this time, and i'm loving it Tom! This is the best Miche i've ever had, and i have had only two before :)

That is so generously kind of you, Tom. Thank you.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and now with two posts at once, I thought it had to be from Hamelman's new book - but it is nearly a decade old recipe from the first one.  I was intrigued by your selection of flours and percents and ran across another Fresh Lofian blogger who had baked it twice, the first time using Hamelman's substitution for high extraction flour of 12% bread and 88% WW only to change it to the 45% WW and 55% white flour for the 2nd one that you also used in a different way to get to the right 75% extraction and ash content that Hamelman recommends.

Yours really turned out great in every way.  Very nice baking indeed.  Love the thick dark crust and glossy, open crumb and freshly milled WW used to make a healthy bread to boot.  You haven't lost your touch Khalid.

Happy baking

 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Thank DA! It was a shot in the Dark, an educated one to say the least, but like you said, i kind of nailed the ash content on this one.

Thanks for the Kind words, DA!

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

It looks delicious. 

I can only add my praise to those above. A superb bake!

David

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Wow, a praise from the Miche Pioneer on TFL.. I'm happy!

Thanks David!

pmccool's picture
pmccool

and in full agreement that you have a wonderul bread, Khalid.

Paul

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Thank alot to you Paul! Thanks to all for their encouragements.

 

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Hi Khalid,

Beautiful bread!  

I am interested in knowing how your starter behaves now that you have added some of your whole grains to it.  I imagine it ripens more quickly and that the it has more 'flavor'.  How do you like working with it?

Thanks for the post.  I love seeing what you  are up to :-)

Take Care,

Janet

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Thank you Janet!

It was a brief transition, and now i'm back to my liquid white starter, apparently my parents didn't appreciate the miche's  chewy carmalized crust, and moist chewy interior, i loved it though.

The 50% whole wheat stiff starter was pretty active, and lend robust flavor to breads. Instead of the liquid white 5-6 hours to peak, the stiff wholewheat matures in 4 hours.

I'll definitely come back to this starter for miches snd other recipes, but for now .. My family still don't appreciate wholegrain naturally leavened breads.. Too tough and chewy for their teeth.  Hamelman's moist multigrain bread is a favorite here, and it calls for a white liquid starter. 

You and i share the love of wholegrain breads, Janet, alas.. not many people appreciate the intense flavors of wholesome breads.

 

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Hi Khalid,

I know the challenge of baking for family members :-)  Mine all have their specific preferences and, since I do the baking, they 'think' all of my breads should be tailor made for them :-)

My daughter likes solid loaves with lots of fruit, nuts or seeds and she prefers a sweeter taste to a sour tang hence my modification of my whole grain starter - I tame it down with a bit of yeast water.

My son prefers soft plain mini sandwich loaves so he can make small sandwiches.  For him I use the mini loaf pans I found on the KA site as he does like like the boule shape...He doesn't care about sour but will only tolerate raisins as a fruit in a loaf IF it has cinnamon too :-)

My husband likes rolls....He will tolerate seeds but not nuts and I can slip raisins in once in awhile too....

All in my family do love whole grains so that isn't something I have to struggle with....

To satisfy my love of variety in what I bake I bake for friends all of whom love anything I bake so I juggle them all in my weekly baking schedule and it somehow all works out that we are all happy :-)

Interesting to hear about your whole grain starter.  It rises in the same time mine does.  I guess that shouldn't surprise me but it does :-)

Good to know you have a balance for the breads you bake too....maybe some day your family will like the whole grains.....

Take Care,

Janet

varda's picture
varda

Khalid,  I recently made a new whole wheat starter.    I did it not because I need another starter, but because I was teaching my sister how to make a starter remotely so I wanted to do it at the same time so I knew what was going on.    After a few days the starter which I was feeding around 1:1:1 with whole wheat flour got going, so I decided to firm it up.    Now I am feeding it once a day at 3:5:3 so it is 60% hydration and all whole wheat.    It looks just fantastic, but I haven't baked with it yet, as I'm not baking this week, and it is only 9 days old.     I was thinking of just replacing my white starter with it, as I don't want to maintain 3 starters.    If I do that, do you have an idea of what the difference in the breads produced would be?   

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Hi Varda,

In terms of flavor, Stiff starters contain more acetic acid ( vinegar flavor) than lactic acid (yogurt flavor) which are usually more in liquid starters. In terms of effect on dough, stiff starters add strength and resilience to a dough, while liquid starters contain protease enzymes that break gluten strands and cause a dough to become more extensible.

Despite all the above, stiff and liquid starters can be used interchangeably, but the end result and flavor may not be optimal, or true to a certain recipe. As to wholegrain stiff starter, it just ferments faster, yet has most of attributes that a white one has. 

All the best to you Varda.

 

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

I did an experiment last week -- don't ask me where I came up with this.  No idea.  I just wanted to explore the extreme end of levain hydration.  Instead of preparing levain in the usual way for our current favorite SD table bread (30%ww, 78%hyd, 80%hydstarter), I made up the levain, using the normal amount of flour and seed the starter would have (to preferment 10% of the formula's flour), in the entire amount of water that the formula called for (it was a one-boule, 800 gr formula).  This made the levain something like 800% hydration: a thin layer of Rubaud flour (and the seed's bugs) in the bottom of a pool of water.  After several hours of (dubious) fermentation at 25˚C, I mixed in the final flour and salt and proceeded as usual.  The dough initially worked up fairly normally, if a bit slack.  But during bulk at 25˚C, there was barely a bubble and essentially no rise after the parallel ('control') dough made with normal 80% hydration starter had moved nicely and was ready for rest, shape and proof.  I left the 800% hydration-starter dough in the fermentation box another several hours just to see what it might do and, when I went to try to give it a fold, it was like a puddle of oatmeal.  Couldn't be handled at all.  Gluten gone.  Now that's protease activity.  As if I had made up the levain in pineapple juice (famous for proteases).

So there are indeed, and perhaps not surprisingly, practical limits to levain hydration.  What surprised me was how drowning the seed like that seemed to have done in the bugs of the starter.  This is anaerobic respiration / fermentation after all, so these bugs should laugh off drowning, or so I thought.  Not.  Mind you, I didn't try to rescue any microbial life from the oatmeal puddle, as in seed a new refreshment from it to gauge the viability of its suffering microbial pop.  Now I regret I didn't do that. 

Anyway, thought I'd share that.  And want to run it by ArsP for his take on what happened to the deluged bugs.

Tom

varda's picture
varda

Khalid,   Thanks for the succinct summary.   For some reason I have had a hard time keeping these things in my head, so I will refer to your write-up.   -Varda