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Beautiful crumb Benny! And the scoring and crust decoration are striking!
Thanks Dan, it was an honor to be asked to write the article and have it posted so prominently in the Breadtopia blogs. I hope you try making these baguettes sometime soon. Hopefully more Breadtopians will start baking baguettes!
Here are some pics documenting my journey making these baguettes. I found them to be so delicious in addition to beautiful, and I’ve been eating them with leftover Eritrean shiro stew (recent nytimes magazine recipe, uses chickpea flour).
Truth be told, this is my second batch of these baguettes. I preheated my oven to only 350F for the first batch and they came out kinda weird. Oops, lesson learned. Focus.
Starting at top left, counter clockwise ( 
)
Dough and aliquot jar at start of bulk fermentation
Aliquot jar at end of room temp portion of bulk fermentation
Bench resting dough
Shaped dough
Seeded and proofing in the couche
Scored
Baked and cooling
Cut
Beautiful job with seeding the dough, super dense seeds are the best. I also love the elegant shape you achieved with the baguettes, kinda like an elongated football, very nice. Great baking Melissa, you are showing your excellent skills for sure.
Benny
Thanks, Benny. Your instructions were fantastic. I’m a little set in my ways, so my preshape and shaping were my style aka chubby bags LOL.
I’m going to aim for skinnier next time and maybe I’ll get more pop to the score. I’m not sure if that was an issue of shape or wet crust. I also painted water on the baguettes before rolling them rather than rolling the baguettes on a wet towel. This made a very damp crust under the seeds. I find that effects score rupture.
I’ve been storing the baguettes in a 9x13 cake pan lined with the parchment from baking and covered with a flour sack towel. It’s working really well to keep them from staling but also not getting mushy.
What a fabulous idea for storage, I will need to try that next time I bake baguettes.
I worked on my first try over this weekend, took some shortcuts yesterday with the starter and the bulk fermentation (I sped up the process a little in the oven with a 1 min heat on and then off) but turned out amazing - thank you so much for the detailed instructions and the videos, they help a lot. I only started my sourdough journey this summer, so am a relative newbie and appreciate all the resources that are out there from awesome teachers like you. Thanks much!
Peter, colour me impressed, are those your first baguettes? They are really really great. You did a fine job shaping them. Are you pleased with the flavour and texture?
The scoring is almost there, really good job for a first time. If you score less across the baguette and a bit more down the length of the baguette it would improve the grigne. That being said it is almost there.
Impressive.
Benny
Thanks much Benny, yeah, first baguettes, assume it was a combination of your tutorials and a little bit of luck, I thought they had gotten a little long, had trouble fitting them on my baking sheets with the wet towel and poppy seed but got it managed. I don’t have a baking stone but some special baguette baking forms, they worked well I think. Taste is amazing and thought the texture is great too - I was super happy with the results and so were my most critical judges, my family that is, all three baguettes were gone in 3 hours 
And yes, scoring is not my strong suit, I have to practice that more and get the move with it. might have been also the blade a little bit, was a worn one. Have no experience yet, how long they are good. Since I have it I baked maybe 30-40 breads (haha, yeah, we only eat our home made sourdough bread since I started this - trying all the interesting flours I get from the Breadtopia store). Will get there I hope! thanks again, Peter
Well I’m so happy you tried making these, you’re much braver than I was at this point in my baking sourdough so good for you. I’m glad you and your family enjoyed the baguettes and thanks for watching the videos, again I’m pleased that they were helpful. I hope you continue to enjoy your sourdough journey, keep posting and sharing your baking. We can all learn from each other.
Benny
Continuing the discussion from Poppyseed Crusted Yorkville Sourdough Baguettes:
I’ve tried to make baguettes before and this recipe is really great. I find this dough fairly easy to handle. The instructions and description are very detailed and helpful. Thank you! I made these baguettes but I didn’t want to bother with rolling the dough in a wet towel, followed by a towel lined with poppy seeds, etc. I brushed the baguettes with water and sprinkled the poppy seed on top. I think it works. My shaping is not that great either and I obviously messed things up when transferring the baguettes. The taste is excellent.
I’m so pleased that you tried the baguettes!! Baguettes can be a challenge to make and I think you’ve done well with them. I took me quite a few times before I felt confident in my shaping and transferring of the shaped and seeded baguettes. I’d say if you try these a couple more times you’ll have it down pat. Two of the baguettes look well shaped, the scoring is also pretty good. As you found, it is harder to score them with the seeded crust.
I’m glad you enjoyed the flavour, I think that the poppyseeds are worth the effort given what they bring to the flavour of the baguettes.
Benny
I gave it two more runs too - one the classic baguette with poppy and sesame seeds, I served that with a home made spinch artichoke dip - amazing. the next day I did them more sandwich loaf style to have the turkey leftovers as a Panini type dinner - was amazing!!!
and here is the panini
Good job Peter, nice to see you baking them again, each time you’ll learn something new about baking them.
The crumb photo is quite amazing, beautiful open crumb. The sandwiches are making me drool, awesome.
Benny
thanks Benny - yes, those sandwiches were awesome indeed! the crumb was really very pretty, I loved it! I still suck as scoring, especially since both days I forgot it every time and did it after they were in the oven already about 3min…LOL, too many things going on at the same time but turned out well. Family and friends were amazed!
Tell me about it, I’ve also had that happen to me. I’d placed the baguettes into the oven only to realize when I spied the lame on the countertop that 2-3 mins into the baking that i hadn’t scored them yet. I’m not so intimidated of scoring warm dough anymore after that oops moment.
I decided to bake a set of baguettes for my year end bake because baguettes are what I worked hard at learning to make this past summer/fall. I’m getting a bit rusty I think since I’ve been out of practice making baguettes. My starter is also creating doughs that ferment very quickly so I am trying to adjust my timings, I almost got it but still not quite. I think these are just a bit overproofed as evidenced by the relative lack of ears. I also experimented with a different preshaping which led to barbell ends on two of the baguettes that I’m not happy with. I’ll have to refine that preshape. It is amazing how little issues at any stop of making baguettes can have such a big effect on the end result.
Look at that crumb! 
Happy new year!
Thank you Melissa, pretty pleased with my final bake of the year. I hope you and your family have a lovely New Year’s Eve. All the best for a wonderful 2021.
Benny
