How to Make Classic Sourdough Miche

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 mished you. Have you mished me? Hey friends, it's Martin and Tucker. We're in the studio today and we're making a mish. Mish is a classic French bread. It's a combination of whole wheat, whole rye, and white flour. We use a sourdough pre-ferment, 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 mish. It's a lifestyle. Come along, let's make this loaf. So, this recipe begins with a pre-ferment. You've seen me use these before to make great bread. It's kind of where bread begins in a way. 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 pre-ferments 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 pre-ferment 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 pre-ferment. 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. 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 pre-ferment. 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 autolyse 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 pre-ferment in there, okay? So we're gonna do an autolyse first. The reason for the autolyse is that it helps us build strength and it reduces the amount of folding that we're gonna 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 rye in here and it's another whole grain flour. And that's one of the things I like about this mish is that it has a fair amount of whole grain in it. But it's not gonna eat heavy. It's not gonna be like a doorstop 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've 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 gonna 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 gonna let this run until homogenous. That's about it. So stop, scrape as necessary. It's pretty close, but I'm just giving another minute or so. Okay, good. All I'm looking for here is that it's homogenous, 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 gains 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 gonna change dramatically, okay? Okay, so that's all it is to the autolyse mix. It's just a combination of the flour and water, and then we're gonna let it rest. Now, after the rest, that's when we're gonna come back and we're gonna mix it a little bit further in the mixer. Before we do that, what I'm gonna do is during this period of rest, I'm gonna go ahead and put the pre-ferment on top of the dough. This is the pre-ferment that I mixed yesterday. It rests for 12 to 18 hours, and it develops flavor and rises overnight. It smells strong. It smells piquant. It's got a little bit of a cheesy note to it, but it's also gained quite a bit of strength. 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 gonna mix it in, and the reason for that is that I don't wanna come back and forget it later, right? Similarly, I'm gonna go ahead and add the salt as well as the barley malt that I'm gonna use today. So, salt right on top. Okay, so cover that, let it rest two to four hours, then we'll come back and mix it. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be really good. One of my favorite breads. I don't know how many times I'm gonna 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 oddlies, it's sat for a couple hours, and now it's ready to begin the development phase of mixing. I'm gonna 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 homogenous, I'm gonna increase the mixer speed up to a medium on a KitchenAid, maybe around three or four, something like that, and I'm gonna let it run for four minutes. And if you feel like the hook isn't really grabbing it, 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 homogenous. It looks soft. And now what I'm gonna do is go ahead and increase the speed and build some strength. Thank you for your service. Okay. So, after about four 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 gonna improve the quality of our final loaf that comes out of the oven. Having that extra moisture in there is gonna make it even nicer. Maybe when you're at this phase, you're even like slightly concerned, like, hmm, how am I gonna shape that? Don't worry. Just sort of surf that amount of concern right now. It's gonna work out. We're gonna proof this for two hours. We're gonna give a fold after an hour. And then, of course, I'm gonna show you how to shape. I've got your back. Don't feel too nervous at this junction, okay? Nice, beautiful dough. We'll get it 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. 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 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 coddle 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 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's ready for its first fold. It's actually started to move already. It's got a little bit of activity. I can feel it, it feels alive. And I'm just gonna 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 seam's down, you don't have to. That's it, bowl 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. You remember where it was after we folded it last, right? This one's had a little bit more time, 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 wanna shape though, let's talk about what the dough's gonna go into after we shape, right? So when I was writing the recipe and I was thinking about making a large miche, one of the barriers to sort of doing that is what are we gonna put the dough in for its final rise, right? Not everybody has a large, expensive banneton that'll accommodate a loaf of this size. So I started looking around the kitchen. First, I used a saute pan. The saute pan worked pretty well, like a 10-inch sort of saute pan. That worked pretty well. But then I saw a pie plate and I said, man, that pie plate's pretty nice. And then I saw my banneton liners and I said, man, I wonder if that banneton 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 banneton. Now, before we put the dough in there, though, we wanna prepare it. And in this case, that means putting a little bit of whole wheat down. You could use whole rye, too. But you wanna put a very generous but even layer. You could also use a sifter here. 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 wanna sprinkle a little bit of flour because I'm gonna 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 flour 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 wanna tear the dough if at all possible, okay? Like I said, I'm just gonna release it a little bit and having that small amount of flour on top will help that. Just turn it on its side and I'll continue that action. 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 and 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. I'm looking at this, I can tell that the top side is tacky, right? If I put my finger on it, it's gonna stick, right? It's gonna 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 floured surface of the bench, right? If I just touch there, we're gonna be fine. So, now, to shape, what I'm gonna do is starting with my hand on the dry portion of the dough, I'm gonna lift, stretch slightly, and press in the middle to seal. So, I'm gonna lift, stretch slightly, press in the middle to seal. I'm gonna 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 gonna 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. If you see a spot where it's sort of coming unadhered, don't worry about that too much. That's all gonna 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 an hour, hour and a half, around there. While that happens, you're gonna preheat the oven and we'll be baking in no time. Beautiful dough. All right, so, it's been about an 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 marshmallow-y to me. Actually, it feels very marshmallow-y. So, what I'm gonna do now is actually invert it onto a piece of parchment and then I'm gonna let it hang out for just a minute because if I let it dry out just slightly, you're gonna have a much easier time when you go to score it, okay? So, now I'm gonna invert it onto a piece of parchment. It's gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna flip it, boop, like that. And it's pretty well-centered. Sometimes you get lucky. And then if I've floured it well, that should release real well. So far, so good. It looks good. And I'm gonna 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 gonna make it so that the lamb that I'm gonna score it with glides much more easily and I get a much more accurate score of the loaf. Okay, so, this has 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 gonna do this in a classic crosshatch pattern. I'm gonna 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. Okay, 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, mish 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 mish 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, five zero minutes. We need that amount of time because there's a lot of moisture in the loaf. We wanna get that out. We wanna 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 mish. Mish isn't that sort of type of person. Mish is much more of like a workaday. They're there for you every day. There's nothing wild and crazy, right? Crumb should be open but not like super aerated, you know? No ponder 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 gonna be as wildly open as a bread which is higher hydration or a bread which has had cold fermentation. Beautiful, bright, acidic quality that 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 chilled before baking have a more tender crumb. They have a less of a hard outer shell to them which I like. Beautiful brightness 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. 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 Miche. We hope you enjoy it. Thanks for joining us.