Baked: October 15, 2025 for the quarterly fermentation potluck at Preserved in Oakland.
I have been baking more with semolina flour and loving it! It starts out feeling grainy, a little like cornmeal. However, once it ferments it turns silky smooth and creates a lusciously soft crumb.
I tried to go light on the shaping of these buns. I was tentative to commit fully to a ciabatta style because I wasn’t sure how this dough would behave. For proofing I sort of pushed the dough around with the bench knife until it had some tension across the entire top, and I left it at that. I did not do a bench rest/preshaping.
The seeds are only on the exterior. A few of them have golden flax.
I’m starting to wonder if smaller forms (buns, demi-baguettes) are a little more flexible with the proofing times. My emerging theory is that they will still bake well if under-proofed because there is simply less dough to lift during the oven spring. Maybe this would go for full-sized baguettes as well since they are a long form.
The formula for these buns:
- 350g semolina flour
- 350g bread flour
- 300g all purpose flour
- 750g water
- 200g levain
- 21g salt (maybe it was 22)
Definitely a keeper! I do wonder how high I could push the ratio of semolina flour before I start to get flat loaves.
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