Croissant dough makes a great pan loaf

About a week ago, I decided to make some bread, and for whatever reason, I chose to use croissant dough as the base for my project that day. I was going to mix in some nori in one loaf, and then dried shredded pork into the other one in an incorporated, russian braid shaped pan loaf (complicated I know).

But what I found that day was that the texture and toothsome quality of the bread (made from croissant dough) was surprisingly similar to a lot of Chinese-style pan breads. More recently, I threw together a straight croissant mix with no incorporations just to get myself back into the swing of things. And this was the result.

Strangely enough, the hydration for this recipe utilizes both milk and water, one wonders why you wouldn't just use one or the other. But I suppose using all milk would dry out the dough (since theres more water, gram for gram, in water, then milk), and just water wouldn't give the particular flavor elements in milk that dairy adds to baked goods. So what we come to is a mix.

Its a direct, straight mix, so theres no pre-ferments or two stage mixing, you just throw it all in the bowl together and mix it until its done. Of course since the kitchenaid mixer is a planetary mixer, the liquids should go in first.

This dough is so stiff it doesn't need any folds, just round it up and let it ferment for about 90 minutes.

Now my pan loaves are 600g pieces, which is probably around 21 oz. But since I'm not baking them in pullman pans, I like to keep them reasonably squared off by dividing each loaf into four pieces putting the pieces all together in each loaf pan. For that reason I shape the individual pieces into batards.

Just another 60-90 minutes (and eggwash) and they're ready to go into a 350F oven for about 20 minutes!