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My first attempts at boules weren't so grand and glorious.  I had several flat, dense loaves that I was too ashamed to take pictures of.  Things have progressed but I am just a newbie.  My friend called me a bread nerd, I felt kind of excited about that.  Maybe I can truly be a bread nerd someday.  I made a pretty good loaf this morning, but now I want to do something a little more daring...like add more ingredients.

I finally got around to make the famous SFBI (San Francisco Baking Institute) Miche the past weekend. I have been wanting to try this recipe for sometimes after reading so much rave reviews from the TFL members.  

The recipe was posted by David (dmsnyder). Many of the TFL members have made this Miche and all reported fantastic results (many thanks to David and all TFLers who baked the bread and share their results). 

If you enjoy my blog, please check out the original at leighbakes.wordpress.com!

Thanks for reading!

Read the original blog post here!

Hi I tried mixing some of the bread mix and letting it rise, then let it sit in the fridge overnight.

The next day I mixed in some more yeast and some more flour (quite a lot actually) and this monster came out :D 

(Ingredience are strong flour, 1 egg, some veg oil, full fat milk, dry yeast, demerera sugar)

:) I think it could have done with a little more time in the oven, so I popped it back in - I also covered it with a tea towel to try to soften the crust - it's worked pretty well.

I live in Thailand where many specialty baking items aren't available.  Improvising has been interesting, sometimes fun and occasionally quite frustrating.  Pictured is what I found at a local kiln to bake my breads in.  I would have loved a La Cloche, but this is working wonderfully.  To acheive an extra steamed effect I soak the lid of this unglazed terra cotta pot in water before I bake. 

I've been trying to improve my whole wheat loaves as a project for this year. The Italian breads I thought I'd master have been put on the shelf while I work with some home milled flour that I purchased from a local farm. My results with the 1-2-3 formula have been good but I wasn't satisfied in that I felt I could do more.

I may have mentioned somewhere in passing on these pages that I have a koi pond in my backyard.  It is a beautiful and peaceful thing in the warmer months, but can be just a little grim in the clutches of a Rocky Mountain winter and fatalities among the inhabitants can occur.  Since I am an omnivore, I try to be unsentimental about this, but there are always two factors that come into play in any fish death.  One, even though fish must die some time, as with all living things, I always feel that it has been some failure on my part to provide them with the right environment th