Pane Siciliano, Baguettes de Tradition, Vegan Croissant

Hello, bakers! Yesterday, I had an appointment at 1, but I really wanted to do some baking. My solution? Get up really early. And it worked. I did have to drink coffee throughout the day, but it was worth it.

Here's the pane siciliano. The formula is described in my last post. I followed the same procedure this time, except I increased BF by about half an hour. I also had to use regular flour on the board as I kneaded, because I ran out of semolina, but the amount was pretty much negligible. Only got a good picture of one (out of two) of the loaves, because I gave the other away, but it looked similar (except the scoring, which was 3 parallel slashes). 

Scoring was inspired by the loaves at Balthazar bakery. The loaves got some nice blisters on the crust, but I'm not really sure why.

Here's the crumb. Nice and chewy, tight but not dense (because of the semolina), and overall very pleasant. The crust was thin and a bit chewy, and got nice and crispy when it toasted up in a panino. The flavor was sweet and nutty, without any real acidity.

Here is one of the baguettes de tradition. I gave away the other two that I made before I could photograph them, but they looked more or less like this one.

These are probably my nicest looking baguettes so far. They had nice ears and a well aerated crumb.

The flavor was surprisingly good on these baguettes. Maybe not as complex as others, but still nice. The crust was very crisp, and darker than it looked in the photo; a nice sort of reddish-brown caramel color. The only problem was that the bottom got a little darker than I would have preferred. Oh well.

Almost forgot! Here's one of the croissants. I actually made them on monday just for fun, but I was too busy with school the next day to post about it and stuff. I just used earth balance (non hydrogenated) margarine to laminate the dough, and some almond mil mixed with some oil and sugar for the glaze. I had a fair bit of scrap dough, so instead of chucking it, I made little "cronettes". Very tasty!

Yesterday, I also mixed the dough for the mixed flour miche, using some of that nice high extraction flour I had left. I let it proof for an hour, but I also am letting it sit in the fridge for a while. This isnt recommended in the instructions, but my starter is very mild, so usually when I retard doughs, the flavor doesnt get that sour. I'm going to bake it in about an hour or so, along with some bagels (from Hamelman's Bread), with some extra sourdough starter thrown in. I'll post the results soon.

blackhatbaker