Gilchesters’ Miche/Boules. Double-leavened Dough, made as a Sandwich Loaf and a Boule.
Gilchesters’ Miche/Boules.
Double-leavened Dough, made as a Sandwich Loaf and a Boule.
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[the paper-based ones!!!], and had a huge “throw out” of all the material I had either duplicated, or that has become out-of-date.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
Material/Stage | Formula [% of flour] | Recipe [grams] |
1. Wheat Levain |
|
|
Marriage’s Organic Strong White Flour | 25 | 500 |
Water | 15 | 300 |
TOTAL | 40 | 800 |
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|
|
2. Final Dough |
|
|
Wheat Levain [from above] | 40 | 800 |
Gilchesters’ Organic Farmhouse Flour | 75 | 1500 |
Salt | 1.8 | 36 |
Water | 56 | 1120 |
TOTAL | 172.8 | 3456 |
|
|
|
% pre-fermented flour | 25 | - |
% overall hydration | 71 | - |
% wholegrain flour [approx 85% extraction] | 75 | - |
FACTOR | 20 | - |
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.
Material/Stage | Formula [% of flour] | Recipe [grams] |
1a. Rye Sourdough |
|
|
Bacheldre Organic Dark Rye Flour | 11 | 110 |
Water | 18.3 | 183 |
TOTAL | 29.3 | 293 |
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|
|
1b. Wheat Levain |
|
|
Marriage’s Strong Organic White Flour | 8.4 | 84 |
Water | 5 | 50 |
TOTAL | 13.4 | 134 |
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|
|
2. Final Dough |
|
|
Rye Sourdough [from 1a] | 29.3 | 293 |
Wheat Levain [from 1b] | 13.4 | 134 |
Gilchesters’ Organic Pizza/Ciabatta Flour | 62 | 620 |
Marriage’s Strong Organic White Flour | 13 | 130 |
Gilchesters’ Organic Farmhouse Flour | 5.6 | 56 |
Salt | 1.8 | 18 |
Organic Butter [slightly salted] | 1.8 | 18 |
Water | 43.7 | 437 |
TOTAL | 170.6 | 1706 |
|
|
|
% pre-fermented flour | 19.4 | - |
% overall hydration | 67 | - |
% wholegrain flour | 16.6 | - |
FACTOR | 10 | - |
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.
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