I made a mighty miche!
With all this talk on the forum about miche lately, I've been itching to give it a try. So when the excellent dmsnyder posted the formula for the miche he made in the SFBI Artisan II workshop [1], I decided that the time was now and the bread should be here!
I followed the very nicely written formula at the link, using a small amount of whole wheat flour in the Levain and toasted wheat germ in the final build, as I've no good source for high-extraction whole wheat flour. I made the levain with 25% whole wheat flour, 75% KAF AP (and my starter had been fed the same mix), to get approximately 3.33% whole wheat in the final dough (it actually ends up being a bit more, but I didn't worry about it).
I must say, this is an excellent formula, and an excellent bread. Incredible oven spring. Wonderful alliterative potential too: My massive mighty miche makes mastication memorable.
Anyway, pictures:
From the top
[2] |
Another external view
[3] |
Miriam meets miche
[4] |
Not a bad crumb either.
[5] |
We sliced it 7 hours after it came out of the oven. Lovely flavor and texture, lots of character. Looking forward to snacking on the remaining three quarters of a loaf I'd definitely make it again, although unlike dmsnyder, the notion of upgrading to a 2kg loaf sounds intimidating! If nothing else, there's no way that would fit in my poor little banetons. I guess there's always the "napkin in a bowl" trick, eh?