Pain de mie, the french way for pullman bread

The recipe for making your own pain de mie at home, soft, fragrant and healthier than the one you can find in supermarket.

Don’t call it pullman loaf.

The French term for this style of loaf is Pain de Mie, for the guts – la mie – that makes it perfect for sandwiches. In Italy it is called Pane a cassetta, for its particular squared shape.

Everyone agrees it’s a soft bread made with white flour and baked in a long, narrow, lidded pan.

But now let’s get to the point. The pullman bread we find in supermarket is often too rich in sugars and unhealthy oils, and is treated with alcohol.

That’s why we are going to make our pain de mie by ourself, using a good quality flour, very little sugar, little butter and no preservatives.

If we want to be even healthier, we can use whole flour or a mix of our favourite flours.

And now, let’s go!

Ingredients for one Pain de Mie

Mould dimensions: 21 cm

For the dough

• 320 g of o flour (or whole flour)
• 180 g of milk (for me soya milk)
• 3 g of instant dry yeast
• 20 g of barley malt
• 1 tsp of honey (optional)
• 5 g of salt
• 35 g of water
• 20 g of butter, melted

For the finish

• 2 tbsp of milk

Preparation

Fase I: first rising

Dissolve dry yeast into milk at 35°C with 20 g of barley malt. Leave for 5 minutes to activate yeast.

Put in the mixer bowl the flour, salt and honey – if you use it – and knead by adding milk with yeast.

Add water too and finally add melted butter. Keep on kneading for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for about 45-60 minutes or until it doubles.

Fase II: second rising and baking

After the first rising has passed, gently stretch the dough into a square on a lightly floured surface and take one side of dough, stretch and fold into center. Do the same with the bottom side and repeat it twice.

Finally, roll it on itself and put it carefully in a plumcake mould lined with parchment paper. A

In mancanza dell’apposito stampo rettangolare coperto, va benissimo utilizzare un classico stampo da plumcake.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again for about 45 minutes until the dough reaches 1 cm from the mould border.

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Remove the plastic wrap, brush with milk and bake for about 25 -30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let your pain de mie cool completely inside the mould.

It keeps soft and beautifully fragrant for 3-4 days.