breadsecrets blog

Last week I was lucky enough to have a holiday in Paris, home to more artisan bakeries than you can shake a baguette at. Indeed, I quickly got the impression that there was a bakery on every street corner that would have been the best bakery in my home town of Cambridge (UK). Guided by Peter Reinhart’s “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” (see here to buy the book), I visited two of the most renowned: Gosselin, home of the famous Pain à l’Ancienne baguette, and Poilâne, home of the even more famous, but very different, Miche Poilâne.

Boulangerie Gosselin is a smart, modern, shiny shop on a busy street corner near to Musée d’Orsay. The baguettes I bought were labelled “Tradition” rather than “Pain à l’Ancienne”, but this was definitely the bread I had come looking for. (Click on the pictures to see full size.)

Gosselin baguette "tradition"

I’m regretting not taking more pictures showing the crust, with the excellent bloom of the slashes. Perhaps I was just too eager to eat the bread! Note the big holes in the crumb, indicating a very wet dough - and yet it has a proper oval cross section rather than being flat, due to being its having been proved on a couche (cloth) and the baker having the confidence and experience to put it into the oven at just the right time, without over proving. Note also the shiny, semi-translucent quality of the crumb, showing that it has been properly baked, long enough for the starches to gelate (you’ll have to click on the picture to see enough detail).

Crumb structure of Gosselin baguette

What makes this baguette so special is Gosselin’s invention of a severely retarded fermentation, using iced water and refrigeration, allowing the enzymes in the flour plenty of time to break down some of the starch in the flour into simpler sugars, bringing out lots of flavour and natural sweetness. I’ve made the recipe from Reinhart’s book many times, and the results have been comparable to the “real thing” in terms of flavour. The difference between my home produced efforts and the original lie mostly in the very crisp, crackly crust, which I have yet to reproduce - despite trying many different ways of getting steam into the oven. I think the oven temperature might be relevant too: my domestic oven goes up to 230° C, I suspect Gosselin’s oven will be somewhat hotter.

As if the delicious baguettes weren’t enough, Gosselin also produces beautiful cakes and pâtisserie, as you can see here. (Yes, those cute children are mine!).

Esme and Charlie admire the cakes at Boulangerie Gosselin

My other destination, Boulangerie Poilâne, is on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, a charming street full of a wide variety of stylish and interesting (i.e. expensive) shops.

The shop front is understated and elegant in natural colours. In the window, unlike the chic coloured cakes on display at Gosselin, are traditional loaves, biscuits, and tarts. Inside, the staff are smartly dressed in aprons bearing the Poilâne logo. My eye is drawn to a row of miches on a shelf: some have an ornate letter P slashed through the flour revealing the darker crust. Others are decorated with ornately sculpted bread fish.

Poilâne "Pain Ornée"

As I was handed a sample butter cookie by one of the staff, I explained in my best schoolboy French that I was an amateur baker and very interested in their bread and how it is made, and wondered if it would be possible to see the famous oven. Unfortunately for me, this was only possible with an appointment, and this was our last day in Paris. I shall just have to go again next year and be more organised! I was soon consoled, however, by one of the Poilâne tartelettes aux pommes, which was possibly the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. It was just a simple apple tart on puff pastry, not much to look at, but the combination of sweet/sharp/caramelised flavours with the rich buttery, flaky base … I almost have to go for a lie down just thinking about it.

Poilâne tartlette aux pommes

Of course, I also bought a miche. This is a large (2kg), dense, round sourdough loaf made with organic wholewheat flour. The flavour was rich and complex with only a very slight sour note at first - this was more pronounced a couple of days later. As with the pain à l’ancienne, I have made Peter Reinhart’s version of this bread (from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice) several times. Again, I feel the results have been comparable in flavour and texture to what I bought from the original bakery, although (again) the crust was not as thick and crunchy when I made it. I think this demonstrates the point that home made bread really can be as good as that made by the professionals: we amateurs differ only in our ability to produce bread in large quantities and with consistently predictable results.