[MUSIC PLAYING]
WOMAN: In this chapter, we're going to make pain de mie.
Pain de mie can translate as a bread of crumb.
The French words are very evocative of the qualities
of this bread.
It's a bread for which the crumb is
more important than the crust.
The bread we'll produce in this recipe
will have a thin crust, and a dense dough.
It will have a few little air pockets,
but they will be so well spread out,
and the crumb will be so dense, that you will practically not
see them.
So in this loaf, we are not using our sourdough starter,
because we do not want to have the tang.
This is a bread that's designed to have a lot of softness
to it, and the sourdough is almost too flavorful.
We want it to be very soft, very round, very "cushion-y."
Think about eating through a slice of it
as if you were to buy through, say, a cloud, or something
very cottony, very smooth.
This is an easy recipe to pull off with your children,
because it doesn't require a sourdough starter.
It also is much more resilient.
It's an easy recipe to start with,
and to start building confidence in your ability to bake bread.
Now, it does get trickier as you bake it, but we'll get into it.
So for this recipe, we have two types
of flour, sugar, instant yeast that
will activate with a little bit of water, salt, black pepper,
warm milk, and water.
And we also have butter.
This recipe calls for some butter as a way
to really make it a soft bread.
So in this recipe, I'm going to use bread
flour and all-purpose flour.
We want this mix to have some softness,
but we're not using sourdough here,
so we do still want some flavor, and the use of darker flours
helps give flavor and taste.
We use sugar because we need to feed the yeast.
I'm going to add a little bit of water
to this yeast to activate it--
just really a soup spoon of it, no more.
In this recipe, I'm using an active dry yeast,
and the water here helps activate the fermentation
process.
So if you leave it for a couple of minutes,
then you'll start getting this more bubbly structure.
So we've got flour.
We've got sugar.
We've got yeast.
We're going to add the salt, and I'm
going to keep it away from the yeast,
because that deactivates the yeast.
And I'm going to use black pepper.
Now, it's really important that you freshly mill your pepper.
Freshly ground pepper just has more to say,
because the grains will have kept more flavor.
And as you crush them, then they give their everything.
If your pepper has already been ground,
it's basically started drying up.
I'm going to start the mixing of the dough.
So at this point, I do a first mix,
and I do it just to bring the ingredients together.
We don't want to be biting in through one
big pocket of black pepper.
That's all that this is about.
So the black pepper I use in this recipe
is a blend of peppers, and it's a little bit like a symphony.
When you want to have a full story, a full expression
of different flavors, you wouldn't
go for just one black pepper.
And this is something I learned from Chef Olivier Roellinger.
If you only have one black pepper that you
really, really love, go for it.
Oftentimes, people think of pain de mie, milk breads,
Pullman loaves as these tasteless breads.
Black pepper is the way you can add flavor and taste to it.
Using black pepper actually lends itself
both to sweet and savory pairings--
which sounds a little surprising,
but you really have to think of pepper, here,
as a palate opener.
So you can do this recipe without the black pepper.
You can choose a different spice.
But maybe start off with this recipe,
get a sense of the taste, the flavors,
and then venture off to other spices.
I'm going to add a little bit of water,
and I'm going to add warm milk.
We add warm milk just so that it can
be at the same temperature as the other ingredients,
so that they don't contrast too much.
It should be just warm enough that you can still
keep your hand under the pan.
With the dough hook, the dough will come together.
And once it starts detaching from the sides
of the mixing bowl, then that is a visual cue
that this is going the right way.
Scraping down the sides may take one or two times, and what's
really wonderful when you're making this recipe is that I'm
just above the mixer, and I can smell the black pepper's
freshness, and that's just really wonderful.
So I've mixed all my ingredients together,
and they've come sufficiently together
to easily detach from the side.
If you have a little bit of flour
that you're seeing in the bottom, that's OK.
It'll blend in with the butter.
I'm using a standalone mixer, because it helps blend
the ingredients more easily.
And especially with the butter, if you work the butter
too much with your hands, then it will melt,
and that throws off the balance.
Be sure to use a good quality butter, with high fat content.
If it's not good quality butter, then you
might have a dough that doesn't rise properly,
or will be a little uneven in its texture in the end.
So here I think it's really important that you
use a quality ingredient.
It's unsalted butter.
It's butter that should be at room temperature
so that it blends in, but it shouldn't be so soft
that it melts in your hands.
Amish butter is actually a really good source.
The quality of their dairy is superior and well-suited
for this recipe.
So I'm going to add the butter piece by piece,
and then put the mixer on a low to medium speed,
just to blend it together before I bring it to a larger speed.
And I would really recommend doing this in thirds,
just so you don't have these lumps of butter in it.
So see how the dough is coming together?
The butter has disappeared.
So I can go for a second third, another round of butter.
And as you blend in the butter, you'll
feel that the dough is coming together as one.
I mean, just when you're above this, the smell of the butter,
of the black pepper--
it's just-- it's just really wonderful.
Sorry, I have to say this, because if only the camera
could convey all the wonderful smells I'm smelling here,
it would just be amazing.
You have this whiff of freshness of the dairy.
It's-- it's just-- it's a really wonderful bouquet.
I'm just getting excited.
So the trick here is you don't want to overwork the dough.
The butter-- if it starts melting, the grease
and the water will separate, and that's
what you don't want to do.
You want the dough to come together,
and as I'm pushing down the extra dough,
you can see that it comes down in one piece.
It's-- it's one dough, so to speak.
What will happen here if you overmix the dough
is that the butter will separate.
So the elements of the butter-- the grease element
and the water element-- will separate,
and that will, in turn, make for a loaf that
might not rise as much.
The crumb structure won't be as smooth.
So you really don't want to overmix it.
Stay in the mid-range in terms of power,
and don't do it for too long.
Those are the two key elements.
When it's ready, the dough should be detaching slightly
from the sides.
It should look smooth.
What I like about this is that on this side, it's detaching.
On this side it's a little attached, but that's fine.
Don't overdo this.
I'm just showing it to you to give you
a sense of this dough is coming together.
And if you are worried that you're
going to use your standalone mixer too long,
then use a spatula and finish it off with your spatula.
So this dough is ready for a first rest in a bowl.
If your butter was too warm and it has started melting,
you can carry on your baking.
Just know that you might not have as nice of a rise.
You might have not as smooth of a crumb.
That's absolutely fine.
You'll do better next time.
So take a simple bowl, a piece of paper,
and just grease it up.
The reason why I'm using butter is because I
use butter for the recipe.
So I just want to be coherent in terms of the oils here.
I just want to grease it up so that I put the dough in,
and that I can easily scoop it up for the next stage.
So I use my hand as a scooper, and I just scoop in.
It comes together quite easily.
And then I just cradle it in this bowl, and that's its.
Cover it up, and let it rise for 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours.
So here, what's more important than the time
is the visual cue.
You want the dough to double in size.
I gave you a 2 to 2 and 1/2 hour time frame to do this,
but if your kitchen is really warm,
this might happen in a little under two hours.
And in that case, just check on the dough
every once in a while, about an hour and a half
in, to see where it's at.
And if you're in the right volume,
then go ahead with the next step.
Conversely, if your kitchen is maybe a little too cold, then
maybe the dough will not have risen enough.
Past 2 and 1/2 hours, stick to what you have.
Your dough thereafter may not rise as much in the mold.
Maybe the crumb will be a little denser, but that's OK.
This point, there's nothing else you can do about it.
I have a few different types of molds here.
This would be a simple cake pan I would typically
use at home, because it's easy, and it's at hand.
This is more of a professional grade type of mold.
It has a top that slides up and down.
This will make for the most perfect top crust
and a square slice.
So I'm oiling the pan, because I want
to have bread that will easily be removed from the mold.
And I'm oiling it, rather than buttering it,
because I don't want the Maillard reaction.
I just want it to not stick to the mold.
So any oil will do in this recipe.
The main thing is just having one
that will resist high temperatures,
and this will avoid having any burns.
Our mold is ready.
So take a little bit of flour, and flour your surface.
And I'm spreading it out.
I'll uncover the dough.
Has doubled in size.
You can use the dough scraper to scrape it
on the sides, or your hands.
There's butter on the sides, so it
should come out quite easily--
as you can see--
but you can also use the dough scraper
and scrape it out onto the surface.
So this is a stage which some people are a little daunted by.
But again, this dough is very resilient overall,
so a good place to start, and one
you shouldn't be afraid of being a little heavy handed at first.
So I've tossed over the dough onto a floured surface.
This was the top.
I'm just going to put it on the side.
If your hands tend to get a little sticky,
then just flour them just enough to remove the stickiness.
And so here we have our dough, and what I'm going to do
is I'm going to flatten it out.
I'm going to tuck the sides inwards a little bit
to create the seam, and then I'm going
to roll over from the farthest to the closest to me
to create a log that will perfectly lodge into this mold.
Just make sure you spread it out to about the width of the mold.
So here I go.
And I'm using the bottom part of my hand, here--
just this part.
And I'm not terribly heavy handed,
so I just pushed it down.
The other thing you can do is holding
it, expand it a little bit--
not too much, because then you'll
kill a little bit of the structure--
and let's see how it compares.
That's about right.
I'm going to do it a little more so I can tuck over,
a little bit, the sides inwards, so that the side looks nice.
At this stage, this is kneading, this is shaping,
this is punching the dough.
You don't want it to deflate too much, so just
do it in a way that's relatively delicate.
So I'm going to tuck in just the tip ends.
And so I'm just bringing it up and a little inwards,
and pushing it a little on the sides
so that I don't lose too much of the width.
And this is important because once you've
cradled the loaf in this to rise,
it will not expand on its own lengthwise.
It will only go upwards.
And then I'm going to bring this part,
rolling it to the closest part of me by just tucking it.
I usually use my index fingers here,
but you can use your whole hand eventually.
What you're trying to do here is just bring it over.
So I'm using my thumbs, and I'm just
creating this little movement.
You are constraining, a little bit, the dough here,
and this is what you want for it--
to then expand in the mold.
So I tuck this in, and then in pushing with my thumbs,
I'm also spreading the dough a little bit--
so bringing it inwards, inwards, inwards.
And we have, more or less, a consistent dough.
There's no big rise here, and very low shoulder there.
What we want here is a sense of regularity,
so that it's kind of like a log.
Now, on the bottom, you have the key
that is indicative of the place that it's been folded over,
and on the top we're starting to see a few air bubbles that
are popping up, because, well, this is
where we're at in the process.
So take back my mold.
I'm going to grab it very slightly,
and cradle it very delicately.
Once again, I'm just trying to be very delicate here to not
kill too much of the structure.
The dough is touching the sides of the mold.
Good.
There's a little hole here, and there.
Here we're a little more advanced.
That's OK.
That actually is a good demonstration that this works.
The main thing is it will not expand this way.
It will push in every corner it has, but it will not lengthen.
So I'm going to let the dough rise here,
anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and a half.
And this really depends on what your home kitchen is like,
and we let it rise at room temperature, around 20
to 25 degrees.
The visual cue here is it should be a finger away from the top,
no more.
If it's a little less, that's OK, but at that point,
it's ready to go into the oven.
So more than the time, the rise.
I'm going to oil the top so that even though this
is nonstick parchment paper, I don't
take any risk in it sticking.
There we go.
The time range here for the dough expansion
is much larger than usual, and so I
think that you should really keep an eye on this dough.
Especially if you're a beginner at baking
and these are one of your first recipes, by checking regularly,
you will start developing an understanding
of how your kitchen operates.
Let's see.
This has risen, and it seems to be just fine.
It's sticking a little bit, so I'm just rolling
the parchment paper over.
Do not destroy the top.
Look-- this looks beautiful.
You're about a finger away, so this looks good to me.
So here's our loaf.
It has a nice golden color.
And as you can see, it has a rounded top.
This other loaf was baked in a Pullman pan,
so it has a flat, squared-off top.
In the loaf where there is no lid,
the crumb may be slightly more airy.
In the black pepper bread I bake at the bakery,
I don't put the lid, so that I can have
just a little more expansion.
So the crumb is ever so slightly less dense
than in the pain de mie proper.
Now, of course, you can start slicing off the ends
to cut through the first slices.
I'm going to cut it in the middle,
to show you what it looks in the middle.
The middle is the part where you are the most at risk that it
hasn't baked properly, right?
And here, just as I opened it, I had the buttery flavors,
slightly saline.
It's very buttery.
It's almost brioche in texture and feel, and in smell.
Now you have a thick crumb texture.
You see a little bit of the black pepper,
and the coarser pieces, but you will really
taste the black pepper.
And this is a recipe I really like with chocolate,
because chocolate and pepper actually
work really well together.
So if you're looking for a snack for your children,
or even for yourself, I would cut two slices,
and just eat it with a little bit of chocolate.
In France, when I was a child, I often
saw mothers picking up their children at school,
bringing them a piece of white bread and some chocolate,
and it literally would be a bar of chocolate.
It would be broken, and--
and eaten with a piece of bread.
So I'm going to delve into this very French tradition.
I don't want to talk with my mouth full,
but this is really delicious.
So pain de mie lends itself to canapés that are both sweet
and savory, because there's a little bit of sugar.
And even though it's a little bit,
the sugar, milk, and butter call for more soft flavors.
So you can use a little bit of cream cheese
and smoked fish, or a hummus, but I wouldn't
use a strong meat on it.
This loaf also makes for the perfect morning toasts.
Slice of it in the toaster, and you're good to go for the day.
This bread will keep about five days.
You can keep it at room temperature,
covering it with a cloth.
You can keep it in a brown paper bag.
The main thing here is anything that's not crusty will dry,
so this is the parts that you want to really protect.
The advantage of using a piece of cloth
is that it allows for the bread to breathe.
Say it's a very humid environment.
The cloth will absorb some of the humidity
and avoid the loaf from going moldy.
Conversely, if it's a really dry environment,
the cloth will prevent too much air from going into the loaf
and drying out the crumb.
If it's so dry that even the cloth is not enough,
then you can put it in a cloth, put it
in a paper bag, or even a plastic bag to really keep it
moist.
I'm particularly fond of our pain de mie recipe at Poilane,
because it's a recipe my father developed,
and that has no comparison with any soft breads out there.
The recipe we baked today makes for a soft sandwich bread,
yet having noble ingredients, and a beautiful bake.
And this, for me, is the promise of eating healthy bread.