Hamelman's "Miche Pointe-a-Calliere"-results of first try.......
As some might have seen from my plea for help yesterday, the baking of this Miche did not go according to plan. It being only my third attempt at Miche making I was a bit freaked-I had looked forward to this bread so much!
The bread gods above must have been looking upon my endeavor kindly,though, because I do think it turned out just great!
Here are the points in which I deviated from the orginial recipe from the book "Bread":
-I used mature rye starter as my jumping off point for the levain
-the flour I used was Whole Foods whole wheat , from which I removed the biggest bran particles by sifting
-I built the levain over the course of abt. 20 hours at two different temperatures-one feeding it at 7pm ,leaving it to ferment in my oven with cracked open door and then at 7am out on the counter top
-Due to unforeseen schedule upheaval I had to bulk ferment,shape and then retard in fridge for about 2.5 hours. I was amazed at how far along the dough was when I took it out of the fridge! Wow! I thought I would leave it at room temp for about 2 hours, but after half an hour I hurried to pre-heat the oven and feared it might end up being overproofed.It had good oven spring and I think I just barely made it timing wise.
-I left it in the turned off oven for about 10 minutes
I expected the dough to be a lot harder to manage than it was- I assume that the flour I used really soaked up a lot of water, because it was way easier to handle than the Gerard Rubaud miche(or maybe I am just getting used to it-I LOVE S&Fs)
This is also the first time I tried my hand at stenciling-definitely to be improved greatly! And since I had the shaped loaf in a bowl on a flour dusted towel, the stencil ended up not really sticking,etc. To be continued..........
The aroma of the baking bread was tantalizing and I was really glad it was so late when it came out of the oven, because that was the only reason I was able to refrain from cutting into it right then and there!
Needless to say we all have had some of it for breakfast and it is so delicious! I marvel at how the little flecks of bran are suspended in translucent sheaths of dough(an awkward description, I know)It has a really nice and crunchy crust, it feels light on the tongue but has real great depth of flavor and only a hint of sourness.Definitely a keeper to be made again and again!
Here are some pictures: