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Shiao-Ping's beautiful miches, based on MC's interviews with Gérard Rubaud, inspired me to attempt Rubaud's pain au levain myself.

Rubaud's bread is made with 3 very firm levain builds, the final being incorporated in his final dough. He uses a flour mix with 70% AP flour and the remaining 30% a mix of whole wheat, spelt and rye flours. Remarkably, he grinds the flours to feed his levain fresh for each build, and he uses the same flour proportions for each levain build as used in his final dough. Not having a grain mill, I used store-bought flours. I measured out each flour for each build. If I make this bread again, I would make one batch of mixed flour for all the builds and the final dough. This would save time and also be more precise, given the very small amounts of flour in the levain builds.

Note that MC's interviews also indicate Rubaud salts his levain builds at 1% of the flour weight, in order to control their speed of ripening. I did not do this.

My formula is taken from Shiao-Ping's calculations which were taken from MC's interviews. I divided her quantities in half and, rather than a miche, made two smaller (480 gm) bâtards. Rubaud mixes his dough by machine. Shiao-Ping mixed her dough entirely by hand. I started my mixing in a stand mixer, but continued developing the gluten by hand, as described below.

Notes for levain builds

1. The first levain was made with my usual firm sourdough starter which I feed 1:3:4 (starter:water:flour) with a flour mix of 70% AP, 20% Whole wheat and 10% Whole rye flours.

2. To mix each build, dissolve the firm starter in the water in a small bowl. (I use a small dough whisk.), then add the flours and mix thoroughly into a ball.

3. The first build was fermented for 10 hours, the second and third for about 8 hours each. This was in a cool kitchen, so your times my vary with the activity of your starter and the ambient temperature.

Method

1. Mix the flours and the water. Cover and let it sit to autolyse for 20-60 minutes.

2. Divide the starter into about 6 pieces and add them to the autolyse. Sprinkle the salt over all and mix thoroughly.

3. In a stand mixer, mix with the dough hook on Speed 2 for about 10 minutes. There should be some gluten development, but the dough will be very gloppy. It will not clean the sides of the bowl.

4. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl tightly.

5. After 20 minutes, stretch and fold in the bowl for 30 strokes. Cover the bowl tightly.

6. Repeat Step 5. twice more.

7. Transfer the dough to the board and stretch it to a large rectangle and fold it like an envelope. Replace it in the bowl and cover.

8. After 45 minutes, transfer the dough to a floured board and do another stretch and fold.

9. After another 45 minutes, transfer the dough to the board and divide it into two equal pieces.

10. Pre-shape each piece into a round and let them rest, covered, for 15 minutes.

11. Shape each piece into a bâtard.

12. Proof en couche until expanded by 50-75%.

13. One hour before baking, pre-heat the oven to 500ºF with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

14. When the loaves are ready to bake, pre-steam the oven.

15. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score them, and then transfer them to the baking stone.

16. Steam the oven again. Turn down the oven to 450ºF.

17. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the internal temperature of the loaves is at least 205ºF, the bottom gives a hollow sound when thumped and the crust is nicely browned.

18. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack.

19. Cool completely before slicing.

Although I got good gluten development, the dough remained very loose. This was expected, given its high degree of hydration. However, I did not expect how the loaves stuck to the “well-floured” couch and transfer peel. The loaves deflated significantly in the process of transferring them to the Super Peel ™. The latter handled the loaves beautifully in transferring to the stone. No additional sticking.

There was very good oven spring, and the cuts on the loaf which didn't stick to the transfer peel as much opened up reasonably well, suggesting that the loaves were not as over-proofed as their deflation on transferring had suggested.

By time the bread had cooled, the crust was chewy with just a bit of crunch. (I did not follow my customary practice of drying the loaves in the cooling oven for a few minutes after they are fully baked.) The crumb was very well aerated. It had an aroma that seemed whole-wheaty, yet different. The flavor was excellent – complex and wheaty with some sweetness and more sourdough tang than I expected.

Wonderful bread. I want to make it again, but next time I'll flour the couche more heavily.

David

I woke up this morning wanting to try making sourdough pancakes with my leftover starter.  I looked up the KAF recipe that people mentioned here, and saw that it used an overnight sponge.  I wanted to whip something out fast and simple, and spontaneous.  So...no sponge for me!  I love the result...light, fluffy (they rose quite a bit), healthy (well, the plate that is pictured is my husband's...mine was healthier).  I had some pumpkin in the freezer that went into the mix.  I don't have exact measurements because I was just tossing stuff in, but here goes: 

About 1/4 c. starter, cold from the fridge (just dump in a big glop)

about 3/4c milk (made from dry)

1 egg

about 1/2 t. baking soda

2 t sugar

about 1/4 c pumpkin

about 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 packet stevia

Mix it all up until you have a batter (make adjustments if it's too thin or thick)....This made 5 pretty big cakes. 

This bread is inspired by a Japanses baking book (translated into Chinese since I don't read Japanese at all):《日本人气面包店天然酵母的美味面包物语》.Japan has a very exciting and innovative artisan bread baking scene, which heavily influences Taiwan, Hongkong, and most recently China. I am originally from China (live in Texas now), still keep a baking blog in Chinese (http://blog.sina.com.cn/txfarmerying), and am pretty closely connected to the ever growing Chinese baking community, so I am lucky enough to have access to some Japanese/Chinese bread baking books/resources. 

This bread is interesting in that it combines the classic lean sourdough bread and Asian style sweet buns in an unique way (typical of Japanese baking, which is very inventive and exciting). On the outside, it's a very typical sourdough baguette dough, on the inside, a sweet paste filling is first wrapped in a crepe, then wrapped in the dough, the bun is then baked on stone with steam just like a lean sourdough bread. In each bite, you get 3 different texture and flavor layered together: crusty and chewy baguette, soft crepe dough, then melt in your mouth sweet filling, unlike anything I've tried before! Since the recipes in the book are from a big-ish bakery in Japan, it's not practical to follow it in my US home kitchen, so I simply took the concept, and used my own formulas for the components, with satisfactory results.

First, make the crepes, the following formula makes 6 to 7 crepes in my 10 inch pan, I only needed 2 for the buns, ate the rest with some nutella and bananas.

cake flour, 90g

eggs, 2

sugar, 10g

milk, 180ML

butter, 30g, melted

- mix everything together, cover and rest at room temperature for 1 hour or more, pour 1/4cup of mixture into a lightly oiled pan, fry on both sides until done.

Now the buns,  the dough is a typical baguette dough @ about 70% hydration, the following forumla makes only 4 buns (each around 140g), mostly because it's the last bit of my chestnut paste.

starter, 85g (100% hydration)

instant yeast, 1/4tsp

salt, 4.7g

bread flour, 190g

water, 120g

chestnut paste (lightly sweetened), 120g

bittersweet chocolate, 40g, chopped (I used baking chocolate pieces)

crepes, 2 (from recipe above)

- mix starter, flour, water, autolyse for 30min

- add salt and yeast, knead until gluten starts to develope. 3 minutes in my KA at medium speed.

- cover and fermentate at room temperature for 2.5 hours, with S&F at 30, 60, and 90 minutes. dough is very elastic and beautiful by the third fold, though still pretty wet.

- divide into 4 parts, each about 100g. round and rest for 20 minutes.

- take HALF of the crepe, wrap 30g of chestnut paste and 10g of chocolate inside

- take a piece of dough, press flat, and wrap the filled crepe inside, seal the seam, roll into a small batard

- slash on top, take care not of cut the crepe layer

- proof for 1.5 hour @ room temperature

- bake on stone with steam, 450F, 30 minutes. I preheated to 550F, decreased to 450F after steaming. At 10 minutes, I took out the steam pan.

Makes a great snack or dessert. There are a lot more innovative recipes in that book, can't wait to try more. My last white wine chestnut sourdough also uses the same ingredients, yet it tastes vastly different from this bread, very interesting.

I've been looking at this formula for a couple of weeks now. The mix of rye and whole wheat looks so darn inviting! Even the starter is 50/50. Finally, I get the chance to bake it!

This poor loaf was doomed from the start. I was so excited about this formula. To begin with, I had to retard the starter because I needed more than 12 hours (more like 24) between the last build and starting my final dough. So, I did as the book says and added salt, put it in a cool place. (outdoors) Ok, so it was nicely domed and looks good at this point, we're doing fine.

Next, I can't get to the final dough until 5pm rather than first thing in the morning as originally planned. So, it's actually more like 30 some odd hours for the poor starter. But, it's still looking pretty good at this point. I start final dough, look at recipe and count hours. Looks like I'll be baking at 10pm so maybe I'll just put it in the fridge or outside until morning.

Nope, last sentence in the recipe says "this dough does not lend itself to overnight retardation".

This must be the first bread I've ever made that "doesn't lend itself to overnight retardation. Oh well, 11pm is about my bedtime so that's fine. I can still do this. Onward we go. My third fold is 30 minutes late (on an every 40 minute schedule) because I have a 7pm meeting. Dough is looking really nice, goes from unbelievably extensible on 2nd fold to nice and strong but still stretchy on the third fold. Hasn't risen much though, hmmm.

9pm, still hasn't risen much and it should have already been shaped? Hmm, not too sure about this. I go ahead and give it a preshape, make it into a boule. Put upside down in a steel bowl, covered with plastic. 10pm, no rise. I'm not baking it this way! I would be baking a brick! Ok, now what? Stay up until it rises? The phrase "this does not lend itself to overnight rise" keeps going off in my head!!

Finally, at 11pm I take a "drop dead" look to make the final decision. It does not look ready. It's going to have to rise overnight. My life is not revolving around this loaf of bread! I stick it outside the door to the RV on a table. Should be about 45 degrees tonight, it will be totally "retarded" by morning.

Wake up and it looks very nice, ready to bake! Yeah!! Now, bought new pizza stone for the camper oven last week. I've had some problems with it. Burned a couple of loaves of Eric's Fav Rye but I moved the stone up to the next shelf so I think I have that solved. Last nights pizza was "so, so" but I think maybe the oven didn't preheat long enough. Now I'm going to try putting a loaf directly on the stone for the first time ever. I put the corn meal on the peel. Carefully shape my loaf into a nice "torpedo". Slash with the best slashes I've ever made. I even garnish with some poppy seeds. This is looking really good. My fanciest loaf ever. (except my braided Finnish pulla) Getting excited now!

I open oven, put peel in. Loaf sticks. Grab pastry knife. Push loaf. It squishes up. Folds over. Plops onto stone in a squished up mound. I try to unsquish the mound and push farther into the oven but it's stuck to the stone. Oh no!! Well, Maybe best thing is to leave it until it drys out and unsticks?

Mist oven for steam, close door. Open door to check. Bread has stuck to the door. Crap! Peel parts of bread off of door, try to push loaf back a little bit farther by squishing with pastry knife again.

Alright, nothing I can do now but wait and bake. 30 minutes later, I smell burned bread. I check and have a perfectly scorched loaf, insides are 170 degrees. I flip the loaf over and turn the oven off.

After about 50 minutes, bring the loaf out. Cut off the bottom with a bread knife. How sad! But, let me tell you that this bread tastes so good! The best sourdough I've ever made. I'm glad I didn't retard it any longer as it would have been too sour but as it is, perfection! Very chewy crust, dense but big holes. Complex flavor.

This will be my "go to" everday bread from now on. Eric's Fav Rye will be our sandwich bread and Hamelman's Oatmeal Cinnamon bread is the one I will make for my husband's treat. I will use this mixed flour bread to practice, work on technique. What a nice bread!

Now, about that stone. I think it's going to have to go. It's just too big for my little tiny oven. Back to the old cookie sheet solution until we're back in the house. I think I'll try pizzas on the grill this weekend sometime. For now, I'm already building starter for two more of these mixed flour miches to take to my parent's house on Saturday. Scheduling when I will build/bake these will be a challenge as I'm working a 12 hour shift tomorrow. Why does work always have to get in the way of our important hobbies?