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APOLLONIA POILANE:
The corn flour bread

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is a recipe I
developed when I was

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a student at Harvard College.

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On Sunday nights, we had roasts
that had little cornbreads.

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I realized a lot of them called
for half corn flour, half wheat

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flour.

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So I said to myself to make
a 100% corn flour bread.

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And this was a challenge,
because corn flour

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doesn't have any gluten in it.

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And because it doesn't have
gluten, it doesn't rise.

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After my graduation,
I was able to start

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working in the bakehouse
on my cornbread.

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And over the course
of 10 years, I

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created the first Poilane
gluten-free breads.

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But it wasn't so much
that I was trying

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to make a gluten-free
bread as much as I was just

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trying to get the pure
expression of corn,

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the richness and the
sweetness of its flavors.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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This recipe, the challenge was
how to make it 100% corn flour.

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The traditional ways
you substitute gluten

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are adding a laundry
list of ingredients

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that I wanted to stay
away from because I didn't

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have any notion of how
they really affected us

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in the long run.

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And the solution for me
was flaxseeds and oat milk.

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The combination of
both create this bind

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that keeps the dough together.

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So we have flaxseeds, hazelnuts,
corn flour, yeast, salt,

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and oat milk.

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We start off with
the flaxseeds that we

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are going to squish with
the mortar and pestle.

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And you really want
to use one that's

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deep enough because
the flaxseeds tend

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to fly away or try
and escape their fate.

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So you squish them, and that
might take a couple of minutes.

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You can also use a
blender, if you have one.

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That's absolutely fine.

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Once you've squished
them entirely,

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you will have a sort of
flour-ish coarse grain,

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to which you're going to
add some of the oat milk.

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You can use commercial milk,
as well as homemade milk.

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And let sit at room
temperature so that the mulsh

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can come together.

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So once you've rested
the ingredients,

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you get this mulsh.

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See how this comes together?

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This is very liquidy.

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After 24 hours, it
becomes mulshy and soupy.

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So the combination of the
flaxseeds and the oat milk

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is what creates that binder,
which substitutes gluten.

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So the next step is
crushing the hazelnuts.

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You can use a food processor.

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Or if you don't have one,
just use a solid knife

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and squish the hazelnuts.

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And they can be coarse
or they can be very fine.

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Just don't get them to the
point where it's hazelnut powder

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because you want to have the
crunch of it in the bread.

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I used hazelnuts in this recipe
because they're very fragrant

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and they can bring up the
flavors of the cornbread,

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especially as you toast a slice.

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If you're allergic
to hazelnuts, you

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can replace them by
almonds, walnuts, pecans,

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or forget them altogether.

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But the thing here
is the hazelnuts

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adds to the flavor profile, and
that's what I like about it.

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Then you're going
to oil your mold.

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This is a tin mold, and
you can use cooking oil--

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sunflower, rapeseed oil,
any oil that will work well

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with a high temperature.

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You can use butter
as a substitute.

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I would recommend the oil
because this bread tends

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to be a little sticky,
so the oil actually

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works better than the
butter, which might

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create a little bit of a crust.

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So I have corn flour.

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I'm going to add to it the
flaxseeds and oat milk mixture.

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Corn flour is the
flour from the corn.

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So it's the corn grain
that has been squished,

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and a little bit like you would
have for the wheats, the rye,

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or any flours,
really, it's the grain

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that's crushed so thinly
that it's a flour texture.

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Cornstarch is the starch
from the corn grain.

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So you really need to
stick to corn flour

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and stay away from
cornstarch, cornmeal, grits,

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because it'll be too thick.

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So we have corn flour.

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We have our binder.

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We have some yeast that I'm
going to put on one side.

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Salt, which I will
put on the other side.

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I have the hazelnuts
and the oat milk.

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So I'm just going to
mix the ingredients.

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And it's a pretty easy
mix because there's

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a lot of textures.

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And the trick here is just
to make sure that the coarser

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textures don't fool you into
thinking that it's properly

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mixed when it actually isn't.

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So you should not have
any more flour pockets.

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That's a common mistake.

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You wouldn't want to stumble
on a little pouch of flour

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as you're eating your cornbread.

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I am using a spatula because
the texture, as you can see,

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is very liquid.

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It's almost like a cake.

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This is, among other things,
because there's no glutens

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and you have a lot of
course ingredients in it.

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So once it's together-- and a
visual cue is as you spoon it,

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so to speak, you don't see
any more flour pockets--

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then we're going to put it
in the mold and let it rise.

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So here we go.

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Here, we're going
to let it rest.

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And we're going to have a
small rise, not a very big one.

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But the main thing here is
that the flaxseed and oat milk

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mixture is what's going to
create the bind, versus just

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a log of corn flour
stuck together.

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So we're going to let
it sit until it's risen.

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It'll be about a finger
away from the top.

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It's not much-- right now, I
can only fit about two fingers--

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but that's enough.

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I'm going to cover the mold,
and this is just an effort

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to avoid having a crust.

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So cover it up and let
it rest until we bake it.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Right now, the corn
flour loaf has risen.

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And what is very specific
about this corn flour recipe

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is that it only rises once.

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It's almost caressing the top.

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In the oven, it might rise
a little more, but not much.

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So do not be worried.

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If it has not risen as
much, that's fine, as well.

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So right here, we're at
the level it should be.

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I think the main visual
cue you're looking for here

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is a rise over the
course of the two hours,

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versus what it was as you
poured it into the mold.

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If you have that
rise, then bake it.

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If it's not at the
top, that's OK.

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Really, really
what you want here

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is to have that
momentum and volume.

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Remember how, when
I poured the dough,

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it was very sticky, grainy?

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Very much like a cake,
but a coarse cake.

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Here, it has risen and there's
a little bit of air in it.

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But if you touch
it, you can feel

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that it's very very delicate.

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So that's why you want to be
very careful with this recipe,

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because the structure
here, the lack of gluten,

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is very fragile.

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And you want to make sure,
as you put it into the oven,

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you do it as delicately
as possible to maintain

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the structure that
has been created here.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Now, this looks
well-cooked for me.

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This is the maximum
you want to have it.

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It's brown on the sides.

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It should not get darker
than that on the sides.

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You can see the yellowish
orangeish colors in the center.

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The fact that it's
lighter, the fact

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that it has a little few
cracks on the top, that's

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absolutely fine.

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So make sure you
protect your hands.

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Use the linen cloth,
and there we go.

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And you put it on
the grill because you

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want every side to cool down.

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If it's stuck in the
mold, don't panic.

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Let it cool on the rack first,
and then maybe just tap it

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a little bit on the
surface to help it unstick,

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and remove the
bread at that point.

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The bread should cool until
you can take it in your hands

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and it feels cold or
at room temperature.

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I know it's torture, I know
it's long, but at least an hour.

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You don't want to eat warm bread
because it's still cooking.

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And especially with this
bread, because the crumb is

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so delicate, you
have to make sure

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that it's entirely
cooled because it

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may break the structure
as you cut through it.

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So you have here a
corn flour bread.

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What I'm looking for here
is a rise that's regular.

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So on the top, it's flat.

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The sides are clean.

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The bottom part hasn't
stuck to the mold.

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That's thanks to the oil,
but it's thoroughly cooked.

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The fact that it's a
little darker on some sides

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versus others, that
could just be the oven,

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and it's absolutely fine.

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You should smell the
hazelnut, and then

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a little bit of the corn.

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But don't be
deterred by the fact

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that you will first
smell the hazelnuts.

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They're very powerful if you're
using them in the recipe.

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I take this loaf and
hold it with one hand.

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A trick is to hold a
loaf at arm's length

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to have a better grip.

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And this is relevant
for this loaf,

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especially, because
it is a coarser crust.

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It's less resilient.

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It has less elasticity inside.

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So use a serrated knife, and
then just cut through it.

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So once you've cut it open, you
want a regular hazelnut layout.

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Thick and dense crumb, but yet,
it's speckled with air pockets.

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The crust will be very thin,
more like a pain de mie.

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And the crumb is a little denser
than my wheat sourdough loaf.

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In some ways, it's
closer to the rye bread.

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Another good cue is that the
crumb, while moist, is not wet.

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A lot of the gluten-free breads
have this very wet texture.

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In this, it is humid.

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When you touch it, you
can feel that there's

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a little bit of humidity.

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But it's not wet.

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And as I cut through it,
it stays in one piece.

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Now, that's another cue.

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If you cut through it
and it starts sticking,

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maybe the loaf wasn't
cooled down enough

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or maybe it was
lacking some baking.

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And if that's the
case, then it's

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probably an oven
adjustment problem.

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So this bread is
really amazing toasted.

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And it's really delicious
because it brings out

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the corn notes to it.

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It almost smells like popcorn.

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But fresh, it's
just as delicious.

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So I'm going to slather a
little bit of butter on it.

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And the crumb is delicate
here, so as you put butter,

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make sure that you are delicate
in spreading your topping.

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I'm going to put
butter and honey on it.

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It's very rich.

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It's a bread that
will really feed you.

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So I really like the
initial bites in this bread

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because you have a
crust that, while thin,

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has a very distinctive taste.

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It almost has those
popcorn flavors.

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But it also has some texture.

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There is the hazelnuts in it.

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There's the flaxseeds, and
that mixed with the crumb.

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It has almost a
granular texture.

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And if you put
fresh butter on it,

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that just expands
on those flavors.

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And then it has the lingering
tastes and lingering notes

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are the butteriness, not
because I put butter,

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but because corn has
this butteriness to it.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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This bread is one of
the breads that stores

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the least amount of time.

243
00:12:41,310 --> 00:12:45,480
After two, three
days, it might go bad.

244
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:48,840
This bread, as it goes
old, tends to mold.

245
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:51,180
And that's just because
of the lingering humidity.

246
00:12:51,180 --> 00:12:55,860
So try and eat it within the
next two, three days of baking.

247
00:12:55,860 --> 00:12:58,260
Don't try and keep
it that much longer.

248
00:12:58,260 --> 00:13:02,820
After the second day, toast it
to have those corn notes to it.

249
00:13:02,820 --> 00:13:06,600
When I embarked on this journey,
I cannot deny that I had

250
00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:07,620
a thought for my mom.

251
00:13:07,620 --> 00:13:09,750
I'm half-French, half-American.

252
00:13:09,750 --> 00:13:12,390
And in creating a
corn flour bread,

253
00:13:12,390 --> 00:13:16,350
it was a way of paying homage
to my mother, who was American,

254
00:13:16,350 --> 00:13:19,260
and my American roots.

255
00:13:19,260 --> 00:13:21,840
We used yellow corn
here, but there

256
00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:25,770
is such a wealth and variety
of corn flours and corn flour

257
00:13:25,770 --> 00:13:27,270
colors.

258
00:13:27,270 --> 00:13:30,000
If you have blue corn,
if you have white corn,

259
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:32,130
you should absolutely use those.

260
00:13:32,130 --> 00:13:34,770
The visual cues won't be the
same in terms of colorings,

261
00:13:34,770 --> 00:13:37,770
but you can adjust
easily to this.

262
00:13:37,770 --> 00:13:41,850
Managing after 10 years
to have this slice

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00:13:41,850 --> 00:13:44,130
is something that
I'm very proud of,

264
00:13:44,130 --> 00:13:48,720
and I'm sure that my mom
would appreciate the wink

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00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:51,120
to her adopted culture.

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00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:54,770
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