Pain De Mie

Pain de mie (PDM), such a fancy name but down to earth it is just a Pullman Loaf!!! It got a equally fancy chinese name too - 龐多米! PDM/龐多米/Pullman Loaf - you know is the white sliced loaf bread which we usually use for making sandwiches.

According to Wikipedia Pain de mie is a type of sliced, packaged bread. "Pain" in French means "bread" or "loaf of bread" and "mie" means "crumb" in the culinary sense (not to be confused with bread crumb).

Anyway, there's been lots of rave going on in the internet baking community about this PDM. Curiosity kills the cat, so I had to have a go at it too.

Delve into the internet then (that was 2 years ago) and learnt that the rave originated from 王傳仁 老師的【天然、無添加的手作麵包】. In order to join the rave, I ordered the book too.

All these happened two years ago and I'm only making this today. 2 years late, well better late than never if this PDM is such good stuff.

The recipe from this book is a rather simple one with no egg or milk, it uses the really basic bread ingredients - you know what they are! The difference are the use of fresh yeast, cold water plus long rest time in between dough handling. I shall not post the recipe as it is from 王傳仁 老師 cook book.

The only thing I did differently was to increase liquid content to 70% (as a challenge) hence my dough is rather sticky.

Yea! The rave is definitely on. See my photos of the baked PDM. The texture of this PDM is so fine, soft and moist. Although the dough is rather sticky during the handling, I love this PDM to the bits.



See the fine texture of this PDM.


Sticky!!!


Manageable with floured hands.


70% full and to be baked.


Use PDM for salmon sandwich on 23/3/2011.
Bread is still nice and soft.


PDM Bread Making Process:
1. Use bread machine's dough cycle (without the proofing) twice. If doing the mixing and kneading manually, make sure your dough pass the windowpane test.
2. Basic proof of 50 minutes @28C.
3. Deflate dough and proof for 20 minutes @28C.
4. Division of dough into 3 portions and rest for 15 minutes @28C.
5. Shaping
6. Final proof for 45 - 55 minutes @32C.
8. Bake at 200C for 35 - 40 minutes (covered pullman loaf) else bake at 190C for 35 minutes.