BBA #23 Pane Siciliano

The Sicilians must really know what a gem of a bread they have here. The use of semolina flour is just wonderfully incorporated to produce these golden, chewy, and earthy breads. The only drawback to making this bread is that it took 3 whole days! However, the end product was so delicious, I guess it wasn't too much of a pain in the retrospect. So it seems that I am halfway through now seeing that this is bread #23 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, where people all over the globe seem to be possessed in baking every single bread recipe in Reinhart's book.  but again, if you don't have the book, look here.

The pate fermentee has to be made first, and then retarded overnight in the fridge. Mine was made using my wild yeast "Adam". The next day, I cut the pate fermentee into about a dozen or so pieces and let it come to room temp before mixing all the ingredients together.

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The directions says to continue kneading until the dough passes what is called the "windowpane test" . This actually took a little longer because of the semolina flour, but in the end, the texture of the dough was silky and easy to handle.

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Then let the dough bulk rise until doubled in size before punching down and separating into battons and then shaped like the letter "S". You then cover the formed loaves and again retard them in the refrigerator overnight.

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Here you can see the lovely crumb. This bread was incredibly chewy and had a touch of sweetness from the honey. The crust was perfectly crunchy and deliciously studded with the sesame which also aided in the crunch factor. Hmmm... crunchy and chewy... my kinda bread.
yeastpotted!

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