Raccoon and Lobster

Shortly before I succumbed the the death plague that landed The Boyfriend in the ER for a few hours, I managed to bake up a loaf of bread. I knew that chances were good that he had managed to infect me with his germs with all of his abnormal insistence on breathing so I stocked up on groceries and made up some household staples so that when I got sick as he was getting better we would have something to eat besides dog food and ice cubes.

I halved the dough intending to make two loaves but it didn’t look as they were going to rise enough to fill two loaf pans, so I rolled them into 2 round boules and dropped them into a pan. This amused me greatly because it looked an awfully lot like a butt (which, by the way, is a totally legitimate bread shaping technique). I’d tell you that I was already a little feverish at this point, but to be honest I would be giggling even if I wasn’t coming down with something that would eventually swell my lymph nodes up to the side of golf balls.

The recipe is Nancy Silverton’s Pain de Mie, baked in a regular loaf pan instead of a pullman pan. Pain de mie is a pretty dense bread, and I’m not entirely sure that I’m sold on it as a day to day sandwich bread since I prefer an airier loaf, but the flavor was good and it worked very well as french toast the next morning.

Pain de Mie adapted from Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery

makes one 9×5 sandwich loaf

7 oz water
8 oz milk
2 teaspoons yeast
24 oz bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, softened

Combine the water, milk, yeast, flour, and sugar in a bowl and mix for 2-3 minutes. Add the salt and butter and continue mixing until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 more minutes. Place into an oiled bowl and cover until the dough doubles in volume, about 45 to 60 minutes.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and gently deflate. Roughly shape into a boule and cover with a cloth and let rest for 15 minutes. If you want to do any shaping, cut the dough into the sizes you need before you shape the dough and let it rest.

Grease a 9×5 loaf pan and set aside. Shape the dough into a loaf and place into your loaf pan. In my case, I simply formed two boules and dropped them into the pan. Let the dough proof one last time until the dough just barely springs back when poked, about 90 minutes at room temperature. Of course if The Boyfriend has seen fit in his fever delirium to turn the heat up to 85°F, it may take a lot less time and you may end up with slightly overproofed bread that has a dimple in the butt.

Bake in a preheated 475°F oven and bake for 40 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped and has an internal temperature of 200°F. You may need to tent the bread with aluminum foil after 30 minutes to prevent the outside from browning too much.

Submitted to Yeastspotting