Poilane: The Secrets of the World-Famous Bread Bakery

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In many ways, the good bread we have now in the United States exists thanks to Poilane. Poilane bakery and the Poilane family have revolutionized the way we think about bread, and it is deeply important that we preserve and learn from their legacy.

-Alice Waters, from the foreword

To food lovers the world over, a trip to Paris is not complete without a visit to Poilane. Ina Garten raves about the bread’s extraordinary quality. Martha Stewart says the P in Poilane stands for perfect. For the first time, Poilane provides detailed instructions so bakers can reproduce its unique hug-sized sourdough loaves at home, as well as the bakery’s other much-loved breads and pastries. It tells the story of how Apollonia Poilane, the third-generation baker and owner, took over the global business at age eighteen and steered it into the future as a Harvard University freshman after her parents were killed in a helicopter crash.
Beyond bread, Apollonia includes recipes for pastries such as the bakery’s exquisite but unfussy tarts and butter cookies. In recipes that use bread as an ingredient, she shows how to make the most from a loaf, from crust to crumb. In still other dishes, she explores the world of grains: rice, corn, barley, oats, and millet. From sunup to sundown, Poilane traces the hours in a baker’s day, blending narrative, recipes, and Apollonia’s philosophy of bread.