Twenty minutes in to my latest loaf of Pain de Mie, and instead of the wonderful smell of bread baking, I was alarmed by the smell of something burning instead.  Peeking in, I found that the dough had forced its way out and some had fallen to the bottom of the oven.  I got the lid off and hopefully what stayed put will be as good as ever, but I need to know if the cause was:

A: Too much dough.  I added about a cup of extra flour, plus 1/4 cup mixed grains to my recipe, the first because my dough was very wet, and the other for more texture.

or B:  Overproofing.  I let the dough rise nearly twice as long as usual, and it was very puffy and the second rise was very fast.

or C:  Extra yeast.  My last loaf didn't completey rise to fill the pan, and came out denser than I wanted.  I thought my yeast might be getting a bit aged, even though it is stored in the freezer, so I added maybe 1/2 a teaspoon extra.

Maybe all three?  =)

Last week I made Pain de Mie for the first time, trying out my new Pullman loaf pan, and it worked really well.  I used this recipe:

http://www.food.com/recipe/pain-de-mie-french-pullman-bread-abm-303501

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/3 cup dry milk or 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder
• 1/3 cup potato flour or 3/4 cup potato flakes
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

 except I used leftover mashed potato and added about 1/4 cup mixed grains for texture.  For the next loaf, I was thinking to try buttermilk instead of 2%.  Should I?  If I do, should I reduce the amount of butter in the recipe? 

Ode to pain de mie

We enjoy sandwich breads--soft crust, close crumb--a buttermilk white straight dough, the dough for three loaves made in our bread machine and oven baked,  or a whole wheat variation has been our mainstay for six or seven years. My favorite is the whole wheat version. Recently, I've made a sourdough variation a couple of times, with enjoyable results. It was natural I'd turn to this favorite for my first go at making pain de mie--Pullman bread. This is a poolish started version. The final dough contains 25% whole wheat, and is firm (60% hydration). As expected, the crumb is close and soft, and the crust slight. The bread has a sweeter flavor than the straight dough version. I suspect this come from the poolish which makes up 25% of the final dough weight.

I think I overfilled the bread-pan slightly. There is a slight compression of the crumb just inside the crust (although that could also be due the way I fit the dough log into the pan). Jeffery Hamelman, in Bread, recommends 2.25 lbs. of dough for a 13"x4"x4" Pullman bread pan. My dough weighed four ounces more. Next time I'll follow his guidance to the fraction of an ounce.

the crumb.

On the last day of class at King Arthur we baked Fougasse and pizza in the center's magnificent Le Panyol wood-fired oven. Here's a picture of our classes' youngest member, Michael who attended with his mother, loading his pizza into the oven, and another of my Fougasse. At 650°F it only takes a few minutes to bake, and because the fire was still burning in the rear of the oven we had to keep turning our breads frequently. It was fun, but it also made me appreciate my home's modern convection oven.

This bread was delicious when eaten immediately warm, but the next day it was rock hard, good for croutons or bread crumbs, but not much more.

I baked this bread with my wild fruity yeast.

Love this bread, yummy☆