How to Make Sourdough Miche Bread

you know what time it is maybe I'm ready you ready to bake I'm ready to bake come on let's go I've Meed you have you Meed me hey friends it's Martin and Tucker we're in the studio today and we're making a mee mee is a classic French bread It's a combination of whole wheat whole rye and white flour we use a Sourdough preferment so it's got tons of flavor it's a big loaf it's over a kilo but the beauty of that is that you can eat it the entire week you can have toast with breakfast you can make sandwiches you can make open faces for dinner this is a bread that will last the entire week not only because of its size but because of its deliciousness and versatility this is me it's a lifestyle come along let's make this loaf so this recipe begins with a preferment you've seen me use these before to make great bread it's kind of where bread begins and away we take a little bit of culture we add some flour and water we let it mature overnight and in that process the quantity of flavor that you begin with increases exponentially overnight the bacteria and the yeast grow and multiply and as part of that process they produce flavor right it's an intense way to add great flavor if you're not baking with preferments yet trust me that that will be a whole new level that you can unlock in the best way possible so this one begins with a little bit of sourdough culture in the bowl and I go ahead and add my water next so that I can break the culture up in it I'm just using sort of room temp water here because the room's kind of cold and now I'll get the whole wheat in whole wheat is great for a preferment because it has lots and lots of nutritional value right the yeast and bacteria they like eating all of that bran and the other elements that are in the whole wheat just like we do it's good for them okay everything in stir to combine this is sort of a dough consistency preferment and what I mean by that is that it's slightly firm the reason for that is that because there's so much energy in the whole wheat I like to control the activity just a little bit and the way that I can do that is by making it slightly stiffer than I would so if I made this really a loose consistency I'd have a lot of dough activity and that's not really what I want I want a little bit of activity not too much okay a nice dough consistency preferment it holds together you could knead it on the bench if you wanted to but you don't need to it's ready to go just get it in the bucket and we'll cover it 12 to 18 hours in a comfortable spot and then we'll come back and I'll show you what it looks like Okay so this mix begins with just the flour and the water in the bowl we call it an auto and that's a funny word but what it means essentially is a period of rest before we actually get to the mixing where we have the salt and the preferment in there okay so we're going to do an auto lee first the reason for the auto lee is that it helps us build strength and it reduces the amount of folding that we're going to need later so into the bowl flour water and that's it I like water in first because when I'm using a mixer it will incorporate a little more easily I've got some whole Ry in here and it's another whole grain flour and that's one of the things I like about this Mee is that it has a fair amount of whole grain in it but it's not going to eat heavy it's not going to be like a door stop of a loaf so whole Rye whole wheat if you don't have any whole Rye you could use all whole wheat I think that would be fine and my old friend bread flour for some strength we got a lot of water in here we also have a lot of whole grain so I'm just making sure that we've got the backbone that we want so often when I'm making Hearth breads I don't use the mixer I'm using it today because it's a slack dough and it allows me to do a little bit more dough development in the beginning which means that you're going to have to fold less during bulk so I'm doing it as a way to sort of save you a little bit of time so I'm just going to let this run until homogeneous that's about it so stop scrape as necessary it's pretty close but I'm just give it another minute or so [Applause] okay good all I'm looking for here is that it's homogeneous right we're not really trying to get any development we're just hydrating the flour and the water and when that happens gluten begins to develop the dough gain strength and extensibility it doesn't really have any strength right now but as it sits over the course of two to four hours this is going to change dramatically okay okay so that's all it is to the Oto mix it's just a combination of the flour and water and then we're going to let it rest now after the rest that's when we're going to come back and we're going to mix it a little bit further in the mixer before we do that what I'm going to do is during this period of rest I'm going to go ahead and put the preferment on top of the dough this is the pre Fint that I mixed yesterday it rests for 12 to 18 hours and it develops flavor and Rises overnight it smells strong it smells peakant it's got a little bit of a Cheesy note to it but it's also gained quite a bit of strength can see how I've almost got these long threads of gluten that you can see in there anyway I like to put it on top of the dough right now even though I'm not going to mix it in and the the reason for that is that I don't want to come back and forget it later right similarly I'm going to go ahead and add the salt as well as the barley malt that I'm going to use today so salt right on top okay so cover that let it rest 2 to 4 hours then we'll come back and mix it it's going to be good it's going to be really good one of my favorite breads I don't know how many times I'm going to say that today but this is one of my favorite breads one of my favorite things actually that I've written in the past maybe couple years at least so we'll be back to mix in a couple hours all right so let's mix this dough so it's had its Auto it's sat for a couple hours and now it's ready to begin the development phase of mixing I'm going to start on a low speed for a couple minutes and then once I sense that it's Incorporated well and it looks like it's pretty homogeneous I'm going to increase the mixer speed up to a medium on a kitchen aid maybe around 3 or four something like that and I'm going to let it run for 4 minutes and if you feel like it's the hook isn't really grabbing it um what I'll do is I'll take a wet hand I'll go in I'll push it off the hook and then restart it it's sort of the bread mixing equivalent of like scraping the bowl it's just a little bit of Maintenance to make sure that the machine is doing what you want so it looks pretty homogeneous it looks soft uh and now what I'm going to do is go ahead and increase the speed and build some strength thank you for your service okay so after about 4 minutes on a medium speed the dough is clinging the bowl it's sticky for sure for sure it's still sticky and that's okay that's going to improve the quality of our final loaf that comes out of the oven having that extra moisture in there is going to make it even nicer maybe when you're at this phase you're even like slightly concerned like how am I going to shape that don't worry like just sort of surf that amount of concern right now it's going to work out we're going to proof this for 2 hours we're going to give a fold after an hour and then of course I'm going to show you how to shape I've got your back don't like feel too nervous at this Junction okay nice beautiful dough we'll get it into into a container and then we'll set it in a nice place to rise I really like these buckets if you've watched our videos you'll see me using these Cambro buckets all the time they're really really helpful um and this is the perfect amount for this dough it's actually one of the things that drove the size of the loaf was that I wanted something that would fit in this container because they support good bread believe it or not so so straight in at this point if you want you can go ahead and give a fold just to see how the dough feels it's not so much that we're trying to strengthen it or anything it's just a chance for me to sort of feel what the consistency of the dough is and it feels nice look how beautiful that is get a lid on it so you don't want that to be sort of hot like 80 degrees or more or cold you know down around 60 or something like that find a comfortable condition and cuddle it if it's super cold in your house you may need to put it inside a small proofing box or put it on a heating pad or get one of the many um accessories that are designed for keeping things at a constant temperature so happy nappy we'll come back in an hour and fold you okay so the dough is ready for its first fold it's actually started to move already it's got a little bit of activity I can feel it feels alive and I'm just going to do a bowl fold pretty straightforward stretching from the outside to the middle real extensible beautiful beautiful dough it's one of those doughs where there's almost a temptation to overwork it because it feels so good in the hand so just making my way around looking to build some tension and then if you want sometimes I'll invert it so that the seams down you don't have to that's it B fold done already smells good too man beautiful dough okay another hour or so and then we'll come back and we'll divide it okay let's shape this dough this is a happy happy happy situation here uh you remember where it was after we folded it last right this one's had a little bit more time uh but you can tell that it's super happy it's active it's risen really well it's definitely ready to be shaped so let's do it before I want to shape though let's talk about what the dough is going to go into after we shape right so when I was writing the recipe and I was thinking about making a large Mee one of the barriers to sort of doing that is what are we going to put the dough in for its final rise right not everybody has a large expensive baton uh that'll accommodate a loaf of this size so I started looking around the kitchen first I used a sauté Pan the sauté pan worked pretty well like a 10-in sort of sauté pan that worked pretty well but then I saw a pie plate and I said man that pie plate pretty nice and then I saw my baton liners and I said man I wonder if that baton liner would fit on the pie pan and guess what it does and voila that will work really well as a stand in for a baton now uh before we put the dough in there though we want to prepare it and in this case that means putting a little bit of whole wheat down you could use whole Rye too but you want to put a very generous but even layer you could also use a sifter here in in fact I usually advocate for using a sifter for sort of Maximum accuracy and evenness right sifter does a very good job of depositing flour in an even manner see a spot that I missed just make sure you get that okay set that aside ready now onto my Surface I want to sprinkle a little bit of flour because I'm going to dump this dough out of the container and I need a place for it to land okay and I don't want it to stick to the bench again this is a little bit sticky and so I might also just flower the top side of this real quickly and as an additional measure you know you can grab your flexible scraper I always say it's like my right hand I'll grab that I'll run it down the sides a little bit just to help it release so that I sort of deform it less as it comes out of the container we're to that point in the bread making process where I'm trying to be gentle I don't want to tear the dough if at all possible okay like I said I'm just going to release it a little bit and having that small amount of flour on top will help that I'll just turn it on its side and I'll continue that action just sort of almost like I'm cutting it out of the container as opposed to shredding it or pulling it and ripping it I'm trying to avoid that see how that's come out in one Fell Swoop right I've been gentle with it anded in being gentle I've maintained some structure some of the structure which we developed during bulk fermentation has been retained here and it looks good now you might feel a little bit concerned looking at this I can tell that the top side is tacky right if I put my finger on it it's going to stick right it's going to stick so don't touch that side there's an easy solution just don't touch that part touch the part where it's meeting the flowered surface of the bench right if I just touch there going to be fine so now to shape what I'm going to do is starting with my hand on the dry portion of the dough I'm going to lift stretch slightly and press in the middle to seal so I'm going to lift stretch slightly press in the middle to seal I'm going to work my way around the dough stretching pressing slightly just work your way around the dough pressing to seal it should come together should look really pretty and that's it it's done so it's not so much a shaping as it is a stretch and fold almost right it's not like we're going to put the weight of our arms or hands in there and really do some sort of physical action it's just a gathering it's really more of a gathering than anything okay so the seam side is underneath right now I want that to be on the top side when I go into my form right so I'll just take it and I'll just roll it into there there if you see a spot where it's sort of coming unadhered don't worry about that too much that's all going to come out in the wash this is not the show side of the loaf this is the bottom side of the loaf okay so cover that and then you'll let it sit for you know an hour hour and a half around there while that happens you're going to preheat the oven and we'll be baking in no time beautiful dough all right so it's been about hour maybe just a few minutes more than that and this dough is moving well I put it in a warm spot I've sort of coddled it a little bit and it's moved well in this sort of makeshift proofing vessel okay so how do I know it's ready well it feels a little bit marshmallowy to me actually feels very marshmallowy so what I'm going to do now is actually invert it onto a piece of parchment and then I'm going to let it hang out for just a minute because if I let ity dry out just slightly you're going to have a much easier time when you go to score it okay so now I'm going to invert it onto a piece of parchment it's going to hang out for a minute and then we'll come back and we'll score it and load it I've got a flat tray here I'm going to use that you could also use a baking peel if you wanted to okay so putting this on top trying not to compress the loaf and then I'm just going to flip itop like that and it's pretty well centered sometimes you get get lucky and then if I flowered it well that should release real well so far so good okay it looks good and I'm going to come back in just a minute and score it you don't need to cover it at this point we're encouraging it to dry out just a little bit and that's going to make it so that the lwn that I'm going to score it with Glides much more easily and I get a much more accurate uh score of the loaf okay so this is rested for just a minute you know if the dough feels like it's really well proofed and very soft and like it's sort of wanting to move sideways on you you can skip that period it's only there so that you get a little bit cleaner score of the loaf it doesn't really impact the flavor or other aspects so you can skip that if you want to okay so I'm going to do this in a classic cross-hatch pattern I'm going to cut in the center and then on the sides and then I'll follow up with a second set of cuts that run at an angle I like that score because it evenly releases the loaf in all directions so it's good for a round loaf so Center and then the sides and then I go across and if I do a good job I feel like I intersect up here I intersect right here I intersect here and I intersect here loaf looks good let's get it in the oven [Music] okay [Music] [Music] woo I think that's about as big of a loaf as you can make in the home oven on a standard Stone you know it's over a kilo it's like 1.2 kilos it's big I can smell the sour it's toasty I don't know to me this is a bread where there's enough of it that you can almost base your week around it like we eat through a loaf of this as the week goes by right so m is kind of like a lifestyle I feel like it's a bread that accommodates your life where every day is based around the deliciousness and health of a beautiful Bountiful loaf this is what Mee is kind of all about for me beautiful beautiful loaf I'm happy with the bake you can tell that we steamed we've got nice color between the cuts bottom is you know well baked but not dark that's 50 minutes 5 minutes we need that amount of time because there's a lot of moisture in the loaf we want to get that out we want to set that crust nice and firm I mean we'll cut this open the point of cutting it is so that I can eat it right so that I can taste it and tell you how great it is and encourage you to make it it's not one of those breads where when you cut it there's this big reveal and you have this like crazy open structure that's not Mech Mech isn't that sort of type of person Mee is much more of like a work a day they're there for you every day there's nothing wild and crazy right crumb should be open but not like super irrated you know no Ponda Crystal situation here yeah it's open it's like what it should be you know so it's a structure that has some openness but it's not going to be as wildly open as a bread Which is higher hydration or a bread which has had cold fermentation beautiful bright acidic quality that's I sort of want from a nice sourdough loaf it's got enough flavor to match up to the amount of whole grain in it so whole wheat whole Rye a crust which is firm but not too substantial not too thick you know these breads which are not cheap shed before baking uh have a more tender crumb they have a less of a hard outer shell to them which I like beautiful brightness of the of the whole grain lot of flavor really just a ton of flavor you know what's really striking me is that I do get that little bit of barley malt that I put in there so it's got just a tiny bit of sweetness to sort of balance the acidity and balance the mineral content that comes from the whole grain it's got a full bake so you have that roasted quality on the outside just a little bit I mean it's everything that I want in a bread you know if I could only make one bread from here on out this would be it it's the bread that I can sort of plan my day around you know so this is Martin and Tucker in the studio saying thanks for joining us we appreciate you we appreciate that you're following the channel if you haven't yet go ahead and like And subscribe for more content we've got so much good stuff coming along this has been our Mee we hope you enjoy it thanks for joining us

Channel: King Arthur Baking Company

Views: 48,014

Keywords: baking, king arthur flour, flour

Id: iZFPqgN9jyI

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024