I've been wanting to play with making a miche again, now that my confidence is back and Susan's high-extraction miche didn't disappoint! I used my NMNF starter straight out of the fridge and got some great results! I wish I had baked it a bit bolder, but this a damn tasty loaf!
So of course I had to make them some loaves! I stuck with a basic recipe courtesy of Maurizio, but upped the hydration a tad and added a teeny bit of spelt flour. This loaf was so tasty, easier to shape than my last few experiments and will keep my co-workers happy.
This bread was a challenge! My flour felt thirsty at the beginning, so I think the hydration was bumped up to about 83% and easily the highest hydration, mostly white flour bread I've worked with. Bulk fermentation was much quicker than usual and I overproofed it by a bit. Even with a generous dusting of rice flour, it still stuck to the banneton quite a bit.
Despite all of those challenges, I'm really happy with the taste of this bread. I'm going back to basics for the next bake, so I can get more practice at a hydration level I'm more comfortable with.
Cheers!
I think I've still got it!
Wisconsin's safer at home order has got me baking up a storm! Huge thanks to dabrownman for his NMNF starter method.
I won't share the first loaf...we'll call that tasty (but ugly) practice.
My whole wheat w/ flax meal was an experiment very loosely based on a recipe from Tartine No. 3. It was my first whole wheat loaf and was a nightmare to shape, but it turned out great!
After putting my bread baking on hiatus, I decided to return and try out the 47% rye from Wild Yeast Blog. It's my first rye loaf, save for the major disaster I made several months back. I ended up finding the dough relatively easy to work with, which definitely surprised me. It's also my first time trying out a chevron cut, so I'm looking forward to practicing that more.
UPDATE: This bread is awesome! It's got a pretty assertive rye flavor for only 47%, it's quite tangy and a little sweet.
After a rather sad attempt at a 75% hydration baguette, I decided to spend a lot more time practicing boules and batards with Susan's Norwich Sourdough loaf. I finally gained enough confidence to try my hand at baguette shaping, but I wanted a lower hydration dough to work with as I still haven't quite gotten the knack of handling high hydration doughs without making a huge mess.
I was lucky to snag a spot in one of Madison Sourdough's bread classes recently and I thought I'd share a video that the co-owner/head baker put together. Unlike a lot of videos I've seen on the internet, his batard shaping technique seems to be a little different and there are also a couple unusual shapes he demonstrates (such as the fendu and the tabatiere).
Enjoy!
After a long time being intrigued by artisan bread baking, I finally decided to give it a go. I think I got it from my father, but I usually dive in head first and think "go big or go home."
