Gilchesters’ Miche/Boules.

Double-leavened Dough, made as a Sandwich Loaf and a Boule.

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I have been enjoying using a 3.5kg bag of both the Gilchesters’ “Organic Farmhouse Flour”, and the same size of their “Organic Pizza/Ciabatta Flour” in my breads this week.   Alison and I called into the big city [Newcastle!] on Saturday afternoon, en route to our friends’ house in County Durham, to allow me to stock up on specialist flour.   I also bought 2 bags of Bacheldre Organic Dark Rye.   This must mean a Borodinsky session is not far away!

On Monday this week, I made 4 Gilchesters’ Miche loaves using the same formula and methods as I used today, as posted below.   I also used the Pizza/Ciabatta formula with a mix of 2 leavens to make another dough.   I baked all this in the wood-fired oven.   It continues to be more difficult to build up good bottom heat, but the domed roof is producing a fantastic crust from lovely and gently radiated top heat.   I made a boule and 4 baguettines with the second dough.   The boule was lovely, but the baguettines convinced me I should not make these solely with natural leaven again.   At this stage of my journey, I am only interested in working with the natural leaven.   I have very limited capacity, much prefer to use only natural leavens anyway, and my wife has an obvious intolerance of bakers’ yeast as well; all very good reasons.   However, a friend had gifted me 2 half stick wires with 2 channels each, so I thought I would at least give them a trial.   Anyway, the baking was a success, as I sold all the loaves I made on the day, plus 3 Sourdough Seed breads specially requested by neighbours…which I just happened to have stashed in the freezer.

Since then, I have been working through all my accumulated teaching and learning resources [the paper-based ones!!!], and had a huge “throw out” of all the material I had either duplicated, or that has become out-of-date.   Alison was delighted when she got home to watch me filling our Recycling Bin with mountains of paper, previously languishing in cardboard boxes under my desk.   I’ve also acquired a website too.   More details, obviously to follow, but I have set time to one side 10th and 11th December to work with my brother to build this.   He and his wife have a website for their own small business, so I’m utilizing their expertise; how exciting!   And I have a Business Plan to write too!   These are my pre-Christmas plans, as well as circulating samples of bread to local businesses and flyers through peoples’ letter boxes in the village.   The MSc kicks off again later in January, so I need a regular income by then…although it will only be small, and things will be tight in our household.   It’s a tough time, but Alison knows how to keep me up-beat and confident this venture will be a big success for both of us.   That’s not easy when I know how much she must be worried too.

Anyway, onto the breads for today.   I built both my rye sour and wheat levain up over the course of yesterday.   The wheat leaven had 3 refreshments and the rye sour had 2.   I began with 40g of each in stock, and ended up with around 340g of rye sour and 980g of wheat leaven.   I have returned 40g of each to stock, and used up the rest in the formulae posted below.

1.    Gilchesters’ Miche/Boules

Method:

•  Build the levain, see description above.
• For mixing, first of all mix on first speed for 3 minutes with a hook attachment, then autolyse the Gilchesters flour with the water for 1 hour.
• Add the levain and the salt.   Mix on first speed for 2 minutes, then second speed for 7 minutes.
• Bulk prove the dough maintaining DDT of 26°C for 2 hours.
• Scale and divide as follows: 2 pieces @ 525g, one @ 1050g and the remaining piece @ c.1350g.   Mould round and rest for 15 minutes.   Prepare bannetons, re-mould dough pieces and set to final proof.
• Final proof DDT maintained at 27°C, for 2 hours
• Tip each loaf out of the banneton onto a peel, score the top and set to bake on the sole of the wood-fired oven.   Small loaves bake in half an hour, next biggest takes 45 minutes and the biggest loaf took around 55 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

I set these loaves in the oven with the top heat reading in excess of 300°C and even the bottom heat was close on 280°C.   I was confident it would settle out; this is easily the best firing I have achieved with this oven; so very pleasing.

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2.    Double-leavened Dough, made as a Sandwich Loaf and a Boule.

Method:

• Build the leavens as described above.
• Weigh all the ingredients into the mixing bowl.   Attach a dough hook and mix on first speed for 2 minutes.   Scrape down as needed.   Mix on second speed for 7 minutes.
• Bulk proof for 1½ hours, DDT maintained at 27°C.
• Scale and divide, 4 pieces @ 300g for a Sandwich loaf, leaving one piece of just over 500g for a small boule.   Mould round and rest for 15 minutes.   Prepare one banneton and one large Pullman Pan.   Re-mould the boule, and shape the four pieces ready and tin up.   Attach the pan lid and set both for final proof.
• Final proof; the boule took 2 hours and was loaded with the Gilchester loaves.   The panned loaf stood 3 hours and was baked in the wood-fired oven straight after all the other loaves were baked.   The Sandwich loaf baked in 50 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

Plenty of photos attached.   The wood-fired oven behaved as it has never done so far.   When I set the panned loaf in the oven the top heat was still at 250°C and the bottom heat sitting nicely at 220°C.   This is so solid compared to previous baking and is really bolstering my confidence that I will be able to bake more in it than I had originally feared might be the case.

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The builders across The Square are my latest fans; they bought 3 loaves and have placed an advanced order for Monday already.   The rest is for Alison and I and, hopefully, a trip to our local town, Wooler, tomorrow see if one of the shop’s is interested in taking it as samples.   We shall see?

Happy Baking!

Andy