A French Bread That's all About The Crumb

Before Hawaii: a story and recipe from The Baking Wizard!

A slice of pain de mie showing its fine, tight crumb.

Pain de Mie, a French sandwich bread with a fine crumb is excellent sliced thin. It’s excellent toasted, too.

Here’s a recipe for an excellent white sandwich bread from France: Pain de Mie. The picture above shows its firm, close-grained texture. And that’s where it gets its name. In French, mie refers to the crumb, or inside of the bread. And pain de mie is all about the crumb. The crust is thin and exists solely as a protective covering. This loaf is ideal for making thin slices. Think melba toast and finger sandwiches. Or just plain toast to nibble on with morning coffee and breakfast. French boulangeries bake the bread in special Pullman pans. These are perfectly rectangular pans with lids that slide onto the pans’ tops, sealing in the dough during baking and producing a loaf with four perfectly straight sides.

My pan measures 12 x 4 x 4-inches, and the amount of dough in the recipe here is just right for it. A more common size Pullman pan is 13 x 4 x 4-inches and it will work here, too. If you don’t have a Pullman pan, you can still bake the bread in any straight-sided buttered pan with a 10- to 12-cup capacity. Simply rest a sheet of foil onto the pan’s rim when the dough is ready to bake, put a baking sheet onto the foil, and set a weight, such as a brick, on top of the baking sheet to keep the loaf from pushing out of the pan. I also have instructions at the end of the recipe for baking pain de mie in a conventional, uncovered, loaf pan. A word on instant yeast: Make sure you do not use rapid-rise yeast. That is a special yeast designed to rise only once before baking. In this recipe the dough rises twice. There are several instant yeast brands you can buy. I always use SAF.