With my bread supply almost depleted and my neighbors arriving for their monthly visit to there retreat… I charged up my stiff Levain and was ready to conquer another recipe from Local Breads for my weekly bread. I thumbed through the chapter with stiff dough levain recipes and to my complete surprise, I baked them all! I did not have time to convert the waiting stiff levain to a liquid one…so I went into the pantry to inventory my baking supplies and discovered I had lots of high extraction flour, spelt and an unopened bag of quinoa (never used it before in pain).  And with that the experiment was on.  The first thing that came to mind was a giant Poilane-inspired Miche with mixed flours …. while the other side of my brain was saying “try something sure-fire, something to share with your neighbors.” Well -- throwing caution to the wind -- I went for the Miche! I wrote out the recipe and doubled it substituting some (approx. 1/3) of the whole wheat flour for the spelt and quinoa…and then adding a smidgen of rye.  After an hour of antolyse, and another 15 minutes of slapping and smearing a very slack dough into workable dough, I took a breather and wiped the sweat for my brow.

When I returned to my experiment rejuvenated by a good cup of strong French style coffee, I uncovered the dough to find the once taut boule was now, shall we say, relaxed and spread out on the counter . . . ugggh.  As I started to panic I heard a voice in my head saying “you can never over knead a dough by hand”.  So I continued the French kneading for another ten minutes, did a window pane test, and it passed the test!  I threw the still slack dough into a bowl for one hour to ferment, crossed my fingers and hung my laundry out to dry. After two series of stretch and folds in the bowl, I covered it back up and put it into the 76° proofing chamber for two hours before shaping. Shaping the slack dough into a miche was a little more artful than I had planned for…but these loaves gently made their way into the linen lined bowl and banneton for the final two hour proofing. And that was my big mistake!

When I finally looked in after two hours, it had more than doubled and looked like a pillowy, bowl of loose Jell-O full of air bubbles. Because of the size of the boules…and the size of my oven…I put the smaller one in the fridge to slow things down, and gently turned the other out onto a piece of parchment paper, slashing it swiftly with four crossing lines. The only thing that comes to mind when trying to describe the sensation of slashing the miche,  is the feeling you have when running over a nail on your bike…first you hear the pop and then you see it slowly deflate.  Sound familiar?

Feeling a bit deflated myself…I placed the miche in the awaiting, steamy oven for its trial by fire!  As I peered through the glass of the oven door, I was a bit relieved to see the loaf making a bit of a comeback.  Although it did have a little oven spring, it wasn’t what I was hoping for.  Though it wasn’t a pancake, let’s just say it had a low profile, something more similar to a Pointe-à-Callière Miche!  After baking the other loaf and letting it cool, I cut into the small loaf to see the outcome. The tan crumb was riddled with small even bubbles, the crust was crisp and brittle….and the taste was even better than I expected. It had a very moist, creamy mouth feel with a bit of a tang, but not too much for my French neighbors' pallets …they really enjoyed it.  I will be very curious to see how the flavor transforms over the next couple of days of eating. This is one I definitely will have to revisit again!

Thing to remember next time:

• Try pre-fermenting some of the spelt and quinoa...
• Hold back some of the water in the initial mix (I knew that), you can always add it to get the necessary consistency.
• May be leave out the autolyse?
• Either lower the temperature for the final proofing or cut it back to one hour.
• AND: DO NOT TAKE A NAP DURING THE FINAL PROOFING!

If you want to see the recipe and MORE pictures...you are just a click away... Weekendloafer.com

Tomorrow, Friday the 13th, my sis is celebrating her  50th... go figure :-)

Showing up without bread on my family's doorstep just isn't an option any more.

Since there's a big crowd expected for the birthday bash, I figured I needed something... substantial. And what is more substantial than a Miche Poilâne that can actually stand on its own :-)

I proofed this heavy-weight in my creuset and when I was about to transfer it to the peel decided to leave it right where it was, sort of liking the "push up" the skillet gave the boule.

So I baked it in my (cold) creuset, which was a first. Usually I heat it up when using it. It worked fine, juggling time and temp a little to compensate for the "slow start". 

The oven spring was less than I'm used to with this bread, but the nice shape makes up for that.

I took it out of the skillet for the last bit of the bake anyway. Lately, I turn my more rustic breads upside down in my convection-oven for the last 10 minutes or so. I like my bread just as crusty on the bottom as on top.

Have a good weekend, greetings from Amsterdam

Freerk

Hi,

On my trip to Paris last month, I got a chance to visit the famous Poilane bakery. I've been wanting to visit it since reading about it in BBA as well as hearing what others have said about it. And finally, I had the chance so I thought I'd share with everyone.

I arrived in the neighbourhood at around 11AM on a Thursday, so it wasn't very crowded. Nice neighbourhood, btw:

And finally, I found the shop, which looks exactly like it does on Poilane's website (apologies for the blurry pic):

I bought 3 of his famous miche with the big P slashed onto it, one of which I had them Fedex to my parents in Canada (you can  order online to ship anywhere in the world, though to my chagrin the Canadian customs people decided to charge an arm and a leg in taxes when it arrived in Canada, so do beware!).

The service was exceptional! I speak fluent French, but I get the feeling they'd be friendly no matter what language you speak. The lady even gave me a certificate to testify that the bread was indeed made in France, listing the ingredients etc. so I wouldn't have trouble taking my miches back to HK (in her words, the certificate was "just in case someone at customs decides they would like to eat some Poilne bread" hehehe). The 2 miches pretty much filled half my luggage and weighed 1.9kgs each (that's over 8 pounds for the 2 that were in my luggage).

When I got home, (about 24 hours later), they were in perfect condition. Here are shots of them uncut and cut.

For scale, that's a 10" carving knife. If I were to hold the bread on a cutting board that's 16" across!

The bread was delicious. Quite sour, with a very crunchy crust which was heavily floured. The crumb was chewy, but when you pull it apart, it breaks rather easily like most sourdough (i.e. not "tough"... hope that makes sense). I had it with French butter, a triple cream Saint Andre cheese (if you've never had it, think of it like Brie's sexy cousin... you'll never want Brie again!), a white chevre (relatively mild goat's cheese) and an ash chevre (same but a bit stronger/more pungent). I'd have to say the butter alone was not the best combo, as the bread is relatively sour... but that's just my personal preference. The St Andre was excellent with it, as it was creamy enough to hold its own. But the goat cheeses were perfect with it.

It being a huge miche, I cut it in quarters and well-wrapped and froze the quarters I wasn't eating. The quarter that wasn't frozen lasted a few days before getting kind of dry. But I suppose that cutting it in quarters would dry it out faster. Still, great bread.

Compared to other sourdoughs I've tried (which aren't many, since I'll have to admit I'm not a huge fan since I prefer baguettes), I'd say the crust is must more interesting on Poilane's miche... crunchier than the few sourdoughs I've had, with a sour crumb that stands out, distinct.

Any sourdough afficianados out there who have tried Poilane and have any comments? I'd love to hear more, as I'd like to start trying more sourdoughs as well as make a few of my own.

There are couple miches I have baked.

2.9Kg JT's 85x3 Miche.

One of the largest breads I have made. Pretty much the same as MC interpretation, only I didn't retard and hydration was lower, about 65%.

1.5Kg Gerard Rubaud Miche.

35% starter (55% hydration, GR flour mixture 70% T55, 18% sifted T150, 9% T80 spelt and 3% sifted T150 rye), overall hydration 65-68%. First fermentation 4 hours, proof about 2 hours.

2.2Kg T80 Miche.

T80 flour, 30% starter (~60% hydration), overall hydration 65%, first fermentation about 3 hours, proof 2 hours.

2.2Kg Poilane Miche.

70% T80, 30% T80 spelt, 35% starter (55% hydration), overall hydration 65%. First fermentation 3 hours, proof about 2 hours.

2.2Kg Organic WW and Spelt Miche.

70% very finely sifted Organic Stone Ground T150 flour and 30% Organic T80 spelt flour. 25% starter (55% hydration), overall hydration 65%. First fermentation 4.5 hours, proof 2 hours.

1.8Kg Pain a l'Ancienne.

50% T55 flour, 45% sifted T150 flour, 4.5% spelt, 0.5% malted barley flour, everything else as described by Shiao-Ping.

Aivaras

Hey All,

Just wanted to share with you some recent bakes.  Enjoy!  Sorry no recipes.  Please bug me if you want any of them.

Tim

4/2/10 - Pane Casereccio di Genzano, Poilane style miche, Olive Bread.  The olive bread did not turn out well...  Sorry no crumbshots for these.

4/4/10 - Cottage Loaves

4/6/10 - Pane di Matera (Durum bread).  This is my poor attempt at this bread.  It's really difficult to shape.  Mine looked horrible, but they tasted pretty good...  More info here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng4jnGnLTb4 and here: http://mollicadipane.blogspot.com/2008/12/il-pane-di-matera_7869.html

4/7/10 - Breadcrumb Bread...  This is another attempt at doing the Pane di Matera shape, very slightly more successfully, but not quite there yet...

4/8/10 - Olive Bread...  Sorry no crumbshot...  My friends said it tasted really good...

4/11/10 - Pizza.  Mushroom, and Artichoke, and Jamon Serrano...

I have lived in Paris for several years and of course enjoyed my Poilane bread quite often. Ever since I started baking bread regularly, I flirt with the idea of making a home-version of Poilane.

I have Bread Baker's Apprentice - so that is one possibility to try, however, I seem to have mixed results with recipes from that book and would love to have some feedback from the experts here.

I searched the forum for entries on Poilane and there is quite a few -

would anyone let me know of a tried and true that would be good for a first timer?  By the way, I have two sourdough starters going, one homemade and another from King Arthur - would either work?

This weekend I baked Reinhart's Anadama Bread and the Poilane-style Miche featured on the cover of BBA.  Someone mentioned the Anadama recipe in another post, and I remembered making it years ago from a Better Homes recipe.  Needless to say, the BBA recipe is head-and-shoulders above my old one.

Here are some picts of the Anadama Bread:

The Miche was a monster, but a lot of fun to build and bake.  Here it is just before slashing and baking:

And fresh out of the oven:

And finally, what miche photo spread would be complete without...

My humble tribute to Peter Reinhart!!

For those who have not visited the bakery you may wish to go to

http://www.poilane.fr/index.php?lang=en

and do some ordering.  If you do, it would be good to have some dough with you.

I have to start off by saying that this was a very rewarding learning experience and I hope to be able to articulate some of what I learned by making this miche.

I have made Peter Reinhart's Poilane-style miche many times, but this was my first attempt at Daniel Leader's version. The formulas are different in a number of ways. Leader uses autolyse, which Reinhart does not, and does not use cold retardation of either the starter or the formed miche, which Reinhart does. Leader uses a higher hydration dough and folding an hour into bulk fermentation.