Book Review: Poilâne: The Secrets of the World-Famous Bread Bakery

[Mike Nolan]

Poilâne: The secrets of the world-famous bread bakery, by Apollonia Poilâne. Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Apollonia Poilâne is the third generation of the Poilâne family to run the Paris bakery founded by her grandfather in 1932. She had to take over the family business at the age of 18 when her parents were killed in a helicopter crash. While running the bakery she also managed to get a degree from Harvard.

The book appears to be aimed at the experienced home baker as well as the many fans of the Poilâne bakery, like me. (Yes, I've ordered a miche and had it arrive in less than 48 hours by FedEx.) I'm not sure a rank amateur baker would be very successful trying to follow the often rather sparse instructions. There are only a few bread recipes (the famous 2.3 kg Poilâne loaf or miche, of course) plus a few variants on it, such as rye bread. There's also a brioche recipe as well as recipes for both croissant and puff pastry dough. Much of the book consists of recipes for using these breads. There are more recipes for cookies, quick breads (though the author would bristle at my calling them that), cakes and a few other sweets.

While the book describes a Poilâne baker's day at length when producing a miche, it doesn't really get into the attention to selecting wheat that Poilâne is known for. It says they use a T80 flour that comes from selected wheat farmers, but for American bakers she recommends a blend of AP flour and whole wheat flour.

The Poilâne bakery uses a wood fired oven with a pot of water to add moisture. This book recommends baking the loaf in a large (12 inch) Dutch oven, with the lid on for the first 10 minutes to steam the loaf.

Home cooks as well as a professional baker or a cafe might get inspiration from a number of the recipes in this book, and the photography is excellent.

I haven't tried to make the Poilâne loaf from this book yet, but I think the instructions are probably less complete and explanatory than Peter Reinhart's instructions for a Poilâne-like loaf in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. And of course if you already have a sourdough starter, you can skip the rather limited instructions for making one using yogurt.

My guess is that the first recipe I'll try to make from this book is for their punitions, butter cookies. I'll probably get some European cultured butter for this.

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