Eating Pain Poilâne. Baking miches.

This is the second of a three-part series on my experiences with Poilâne bread. You can find the first part here.

A short while after we got back from Paris, I was poking around the Poilâne website checking the price of shipping a loaf to Berlin (about 36€, shipping included), when I noticed that Galeries Lafayette on Friedrichstrasse was one of their international distributors. Almost immediately I headed over there and scoped out the bread counter. They not only sold huge, round whole loaves in their signature white bags, but they also sold half and quarter loaves in small plastic bags.

Because I still had a third of a loaf left over from Paris, I didn't need to buy any just yet. I held off, thinking that I could whip up a batch of flour, sourdough and water and bake my own loaf. I mean, how hard could it be? I put all ten digits on my blank keyboard and tirelessly researched Discussion Forums, brushed up on the German flours available to me, and even bought whole Spelt Flour based on what I had read.


This was the first miche I ever baked.

Somehow intoxicated by the idea, I baked another one. On the same day. Okay, I didn't just decide to bake this one, I also baked the following one. For some crazy reason, I decided I should bake two at the same time.


For these two breads, I used Fred, the sourdough starter that I had bought from the store. I actually think this might have been my first experience with Sourdough, because, even though the loaves look okay from above...


They were completely flat from the side.

I was crushed. Disappointed. I thought I would never be able to master sourdough bread, and in turn, never be able to reach the standards set by the late, great Monsieur Poilâne.


The second loaf was a bit flatter, everyone who got a piece of the bread ate it up. Literally. Flattish, moist, almost gummy rye breads are common in Germany, and most people are easily deceived by the nice scoring at the top. If I had told everyone that this was a loaf of rye bread they would have believed me. Well, aside from the taste.


Instead, I snuck back over to Galeries Lafayette. So started my dirty little secret. Well, my flour-dusted little secret. I wouldn't buy a half or quarter loaf...


I would buy a whole loaf.


The coating of flour on the loaves is amazing. The flour coats the top surface of the bread and even forms cracks. The scoring is also quite amazing. The "P" is scored with attention to detail. The tail shows how the bread is scored ever so lightly on the tail of the letter.


Again, the mystery line appears. A fine coat of ash dusts the bottom of every loaf.


The crumb is just beautiful, with larger holes along the edges of the bread, and the crust is thick. The brown edges line every slice, providing a generous chew, or a crunch when the bread is toasted.


Here's my next attempt at making a miche. For this one I used Type 1050 German flour, which would become my standard flour for these loaves. Type 1050 flour is flour with an ash content of 1050mg per 100g. In Germany, it's basically one step down from whole wheat, and is generally used in breads where the color doesn't matter, and in breads where rye is mixed in.


The crumb is still tight, but at least I was making progress.


Despite being able to bake 2kg loaves, there is nothing like taking the U-Bahn home with a huge white bag inside an even bigger red bag with the Lafayette logo. People look at you like you've just bought the latest coat from Paris, when all you really have is the most amazing bread in the world.


The crumb is always random.


And the loaves themselves are never the same as the one from two weeks before. They're irregular- measured by diameter, they usually range from 28-23cm.


As for my adventures, it wasn't until I started making loaves from my own cultivated sourdough starter that I began having success with larger breads. Here's one of the early test breads that wasn't as wide, but definitely rose higher than I had expected.


Unfortunately, I'm terrible at thinking up scoring designs. I try to be creative but it all ends up crooked.


The other thing I love doing is baking the breads until the flour dusting turns brown, and the breads themselves are a dark, rich mahogany. I'm unfortunate enough to have an electrical oven, but fortunate to have direct heat from the top.


By this point, I was getting pretty good at making the monster loaves. The line, or tear, on the left side is where I plunged the thermometer into the loaf to take a reading. It was mere coincidence that I happened to cut it along the same line.


The bags are one of my favorite things about the bread. They usually come double bagged. I take the bread out, carefully smooth out the bags and then put the bread into older bags that I keep. Thus far, I've only had to toss one bag that was torn from overuse. Aside from the beautiful logo, The bags themselves are plain paper bags that soften after repeated use, and are printed with descriptions of grains (in French) that are used in making bread.


Again, note the scoring of the loaf. The "P" is different, but no less elegant, on this loaf.


This particular loaf is actually quite round, in comparison to some of the other loaves I've bought. However, no loaf has been any less delicious because of its shape, though. Note the cracks and grooves in the base of the bread.


The very first thing I do (after I take photos) is cut the loaf in half and immediately freeze one half. I wrap it in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, then stick it in a huge Ziploc bag, the likes of which are quite rare in Germany. For reheating, I leave it wrapped in foil for an hour in a 180C oven. Of course, it's difficult to keep your hands off one when warm.


On some loaves, the dusting of flour can be as thick as a millimeter, and the scoring always varies. Every loaf is essentially hand-made, with the only automation being the mixer used to develop the dough.


Two days after buying the loaf above, we were on a plane to visit my sister and her family. On the plane I noticed that the bread was packed inside of a plastic pillow. I had pre-sliced a chunk of the bread to take with us on the plane ride, and thought it would be funny to photograph the meal with the Pain Poilâne.


I was right! The ravioli was amazing with the bread, and the vegetable salad had a certain je ne sais quoi.

Okay, I jest. Although, as a vegetarian, I find most vegetarian plane food rather decent, but that might just be because I have no other choice, or maybe because I almost always get served first. Still, it was quite an experience to have good bread during a day in which all one could do was sit still and watch movies. Imagine if all bread on airplanes was freshly cut from a massive loaf!

In early February, I headed over again to Galeries Lafayette. This time, though, I got there five minutes too late. The saleslady at the bread counter had just cut the very last loaf into four quarters. She mentioned that the price was the same for one whole loaf or four quarters. I stared at them in their perfect plastic bags, but I could just not bring myself to do it. There's something just magical about having such a huge chunk of bread. Instead, I decided on two halves, which I later found out were mismatching!


This is the most recent loaf I bought. Half is still sitting in my freezer, and I'm already planning my next visit to buy another giant loaf. It doesn't hurt that it's only a 10 minute detour on the way home.


One of the things I love most about the packaging and presentation is the twist on one side to close the bag. It forms what looks like an ear as well as a handle.


The irregularity of the holes, is astounding, particularly around the outer crust. The first and last few slices of any half are usually almost completely filled with holes. Well, that is, if holes can fill something.


One of the most distinct flavors of the bread, which is missing from my own loaves, is a certain smokiness. It's not there in every slice, but when it is, it's usually very faint. This makes sense, as the bread is baked in a wood-fired oven. If you look closely, you'll notice an ever-so-delicate dusting of ash from the oven, which probably contributes to the amazing flavor profile.

My Torn Miche:


One of the things I learned in my research, and one of the things Peter Reinhart simulates in The Bread Baker's Apprentice is the use of a piece of old dough as leavening agent. For a while I actually had a starter at 65% hydration, with 2% sea salt. However, measuring minute amounts of sea salt proved too difficult for me.

This time, however, bad luck fell upon me and I was able to quickly turn it into good luck: I was dabbling with spelt flour, and had even formulated a recipe that had a final amount of 25% whole spelt. Another 25% of the flour came from a 100% Sourdough Starter. Somehow, I goofed and let the bread rise too long. How long is too long? Oh, about 14 hours at room temperature. I think it might have had something to do with me going to sleep without putting the dough in the fridge, then forgetting about it the next morning until noon. That dough was terrible. There was no structure left when I got back to it. It rose high enough to just be able to brush the firmament with a feather, so that when I got to it, the gluten immediately fell apart when I degassed it. I used that fallen-apart-unstructured dough and made this bread.

The loaf is torn in the middle because it stuck to the linen rather than coming out, and the dough folded over onto itself. In the oven, however, it realized it was the weakest point and burst forth through the crevice. Note my crazy scoring. At least that is consistent.


I really can't complain, though. The flavor is great, though not amazing- I think I'll have to have the second rise overnight in the refrigerator to get my desired sourness.

In case you're still breathing after all those bread pictures, here's the recipe for the above bread. I've gotten to a point where I can bake this type of loaf with my eyes nearly closed, which comes in handy when the dough has risen overnight and the loaf has to go into the oven fairly early.


Recipe: Poilâne-style Torn Miche

(Note that I actually made 3kg of what is now the Old Dough starter, so I've backtracked and reformulated that part to reflect what I actually ended up using.)

Old Dough:
160g Sourdough Starter at 100% (80g Flour, 80g Water)
80g Whole Spelt Flour (You can substitute Sifted Whole Wheat Flour)
170g Sifted Whole Wheat Flour
134g Water
6g Sea Salt

This basically gets you a dough with a final hydration of 65%, and 2% Sea Salt.

Knead as you would for a bread and let rise until it has doubled, or for about 6-12 hours. You can also put this in the fridge, but be sure to give it a head-start of at least 4 hours before you refrigerate it, and at least 4 afterwards to let it come back to room temperature.


Final Dough:
550g old dough (from above)
1000g Sifted Whole Wheat Flour
650g Water at room temperature
25g Sea Salt

Note that the old dough is already at 65%, so the final dough will basically just be a threefold batch based on the first dough. The final weight of the dough will be just about 2,2kg.

Again, knead until the dough looks almost right. Stretch and fold every thirty minutes for the first two of the 4-6 hour rise. Shape and refrigerate in linen-covered colander.

Take out of fridge two hours before baking time to let it warm up.

Turn onto floured bread peel and allow the middle of the bread to stick to the fabric. After some prodding, take your hand and scrape out the dough that won't come out, making sure that some is left behind to create a tear in the bread.

Arrange the torn dough one piece atop the other so as to hide the mistake.

Score the sides of the loaf like a crazed baker and load onto a baking stone in the oven. Dump about a cup or a half cup of water into the pan you always keep at the bottom of the oven.
Bake for about an hour at 230C.

Cool on a wire rack.

Photograph. Post. Repeat.


Further Reading:

In case you missed the small update to my last post:
Dorie Greenspan just posted an amazing video of the late, great Lionel Poilâne making Punitions. Her recipe, from the man himself, is on her essential post on Butter.

The Bread Baking Babes tackled this bread in May 2008. Here's the roundup post at What Did You Eat

Here's Sherry's post on this wonderful bread at What Did You Eat

Another one from Apple Pie, Patis, Pâté

Bake my Day's Poilâne post

Petra's Brotkasten five-grain-flour variation (in German)

Another recipe courtesy of tengby.com

Kenneth's Poilâne on Kitchencookingrecipes.com

A post on Kenneth's Poilâne-style Miche at the very excellent and very fresh, Fresh Loaf

Recreating the miche in Australia at Brasserie Bread

Stay Tuned for Part Three!

BBA Challenge #25: Pizza! Napoletana

When I was in College, or, as I am now accustomed to say, in University, I worked at one of the University-run snack bars. I worked Friday Nights because I really had no social life, and working allowed me to talk to random strangers while their food was cooking. While I enjoyed working the grill and making omelettes for very cute women, my true love was making pizzas. The only drawback was that I actually didn't get to talk to anyone except for whoever was making pizzas along with me. So I had to switch every other week in order to get the best of both positions.

The thing here, though was that we had copious amounts of cornmeal to dust the peels, so they slid beautifully into the oven. Taking them out, however, was a different matter. There was always this fear that the pizza would wobble on the peel, and fall to the floor, cheese side down, of course. I did drop a few, but, in truth, perhaps only two out of the hundred or so that I made in my time there.

Growing up, however, we never made pizza at home. Our home oven was actually unused for most of the time I was growing up, and, since Mexican cuisine doesn't really have much that requires an oven, it became the de facto storage for our pots and pans. As for delivery, we had the Pizza Cart, always a phone call away, and Domino's, which I hated because it never tasted good and the pizzas were always way too small in comparison with those from the Pizza Cart.

In New York, there was always the debate as to who had the best pizza, and which Ray's was the first with the name. For best pie, however, my vote went to Grimaldi's, partly because it was delicious, and partly because it was a bit of a ritual, whenever it happened. We would begin by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to work up a hunger. Then, we would wait in line outside the restaurant (there was invariably a line) and then scarf down an olive-and-roasted-red-peppers-topped pie. We would head over to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory for a scoop before watching the lights on the Fulton Ferry Landing. Though I've done this countless times, I never got tired of it.

In Berlin, however, Pizza is a different matter. There's mini-pizzas, often available for a single Euro, but they're usually about four or five inches in diameter, or they are a rectangular piece of about the same size. Slices don't exist here except at a few places that claim NY-style pizza, but even their pizza leaves one craving good pizza.

Having said that, there are a few places that make excellent Pizza. Clärchen's Ballhaus, which is actually a ballroom, as well as Toros, near where I work are two good examples. Toros actually has a wood-fired brick oven, which you can see when you walk in. Don't even mention that place in Prenzlauer Berg because I hated the experience of being in the place, though the pizza was pretty good.

My favorite place in Berlin, though, is the Pizza Klub, which, coincidentally, is just a Katzensprung away from us. There had been a string of pizzerias in the same location before they opened up, so when the last one closed my expectations were at Zero. When they removed the paper on the windows after remodeling, however, the entire neighborhood was shocked. There were nice lamps. Wooden tables. Rock star posters on the wall. It looked so... inviting. We first went there on a Sunday after a weekend trip. I really don't remember which pizza I had, but since then, we've had dozens of pies from there. It's even become our favorite place to watch Football, which we do every two years for the European Cup or the World Cup.

I have been making pizza as long as I have been making bread, and while the pizza was always acceptable, it was nowhere near the pizzas I would eat when out.


This is a picture of my Electrolux Assistent model AKM4110W, known to most as the DLX. I actually got it after getting my bonus from work last winter, and after researching it on Jeff Varasano's excellent Pizza Recipe site. My whole intent was to make pizza. I never dreamed I would be participating in the BBA Challenge or getting back to making bread.


For Peter Reinharts recipe, there really isn't much in the way of prep. You sort of chill high-gluten flour as well as water, and just mix it up. I added a little bit of olive oil for texture, but aside from that, there's really nothing to it.


Here's a picture of the dough just before shaping and baking. I have to confess to not reading the directions all the way through. Instead of forming six balls and refrigerating them. I just put the entire dough in a bowl and stuck it in the fridge. I also sort of forgot about it. You see, I had wanted to make pizza during the week, and, as fate always has it, I only got to the dough six days after preparing it. On a Friday. On this day I took the photo above and then froze three of the balls of dough.


The other three were flattened out for a dough rest.


The first pizza was a resounding success! The only thing I didn't like was that I was using a 17% low-fat mozzarella, just to see how the cheese would melt. I've never had much luck with low-fat cheeses, and this one was a bit stubborn as it cooled. I had to wrestle my teeth around it.


It made for a beautiful pie even if the crust was a bit pale.


Pie two also had fresh mozzarella, but this time I used Mozzarella di Bufala, which I traded for an arm but not a leg at Galeries Lafayette.


This was one weirdest things when I first got here. Mozzarella is sold by the Kugel, floating in brine, in its own plastic pouch. In Brooklyn, I used to head to the Italian Market on Graham Avenue and pay a pretty penny for fresh Mozzarella which they would weigh out for me before taking a leg but not an arm. Here, each pouch of 125g Mozzarella can be had for just over fifty Euro cents. The downside to so much fresh, is that the aged variety is impossible to find. Even when you try to buy "Pizza Cheese" here, it is mostly all Gouda, with no Mozzarella at all.


The second pie did not fare well. Hesitation will do the opposite of wonders when you are baking. In this case, I am not sure what happened other than the pie spilled itself onto the oven stone, causing a fair amount of smoke the next day when I was baking my loaf of bread for the week. I flipped the stone over and forgot about the blackened parts.


Pie three gave up a crumb shot. I just had to take it because I can't let a BBA item go by without showing the holes.

Pie four was eaten before I could even get a picture of it. I know, I know. Bad me.


Pie five had parmesan, cheddar and fresh mozzarella. It looked just as toxic as the picture above, but only because I found an cheddar from England that was bright orange, just the way I like it.

This crust was was one of the most flavorful crusts I have ever had, by my hand or otherwise. It really took me back to the Pizza Cart as well as certain pies in New York. Ever since I began seriously appreciating pizza I've been focused on the crust. However, I would never dare eat a pie without tomato sauce. White Pizza? For me, it's not pizza.

Once, my sister and her husband attempted to order Extra Cheese on a thin crust pie at Grimaldi's. Sacrilage! I shouted. I told them to trust me, and just order a maximum of two toppings. The pizza had the right amount of cheese on it. It was just a thin layer, but it was the perfect foil to the crust. After the pizza, we headed over for some ice cream and took in the lights of the city before descending back into the subway and heading home.

Other Pizzaolos in the BBA Challenge:

Kelly from Something Shiny

Janice from Round the Table

Paul from Yumarama

Cindy from Salt and Serenity

Sally from Bewitching Kitchen