Mini gauntlet and segue to more pastries
To an extent I'm now pretty content with basic loaf baking and find myself craving pastires more. Its funny how this obsession arose after finally giving up trying to find a baguette in usa that tastes like the real deal and finally figure well why not just learn how bake the darn things myself (this is typical behavior for me btw as ive countless other replications of foods that can only be found wherever it was they were invented - take the famous lebanese kanafe for example - wow ! what a treat). I find that if i havent baked bread for a few weeks I am always surprised what I was missing - the point being that your taste buds seem to take flavors for granted after a while and such is the case with good bread. Although the last few months have been concerned with shaping i do think flavor-wise I very closely nailed the authentic flavor months ago and much of that has to do with the flour I sourced from lepicerie.com. I will say it again, it is in incredible - there is no substitute - french baguettes made with T65 flour grown and milled in france taste a thousand times better, and, if the crumb nice and developed with a long cold ferment its very difficult to distinguish from the real thing. So that brings my taste buds to the next challenge - viennoise pastries - looks like a long haul ahead but lets see how it goes ...