First things first. Full credit to my dear friend Elaine, for inspiring me to use a pan I had bought a few months ago and was sitting in the basement, feeling neglected (the pan, not the baker). The gadget is a mini-loaf, Pullman style, that makes a cute cube-shaped bread. You can use any type of dough you like, but I went with a simple sourdough.

MINI-PULLMAN SOURDOUGH BREAD
(adapted from Elaine’s master recipe)

225g white flour
25g whole-wheat flour
40g sourdough starter at 100% hydration
175g water
5g salt

Lay a piece of parchment paper in the mini-loaf pan with a little overhang to make it easier to pull the baked bread later. Reserve.

Mix all ingredients for the dough in a medium-size bowl. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

Do a series of foldings every 45 minutes or so until you reach 5 hours bulk fermentation (so do folds for 4 more hours, don’t worry about timing, try to make 4 more cycles of folding. Shape it loosely as a ball, and place in the mini-loaf pan. Cover loosely with plastic and place in the refrigerator overnight. It should fill a little more than half the volume of the pan.

Next morning, heat the oven to 425F. When it reaches that temperature, remove the plastic cover, shut the pan with the metal lid, and bake for 30 minutes. Open the lid, and leave in the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes, and invert to remove the bread. Cool completely on a rack before slicing.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: For this size of pan, you need to have enough dough so that during baking it will reach the top. However, if you add too much it will end up badly compressed at the top, and the texture of the crumb won’t be homogeneous. The picture above shows the dough before it went into its final fermentation in the fridge. It is perhaps 70% full.

I don’t think you need to add the parchment paper, but it was my first time using this method and I was afraid of the dough sticking to the pan. Not at all the case. I did not grease the pan, and the dough stayed inside overnight in the fridge without any issues.

This recipe makes a small loaf perfect for a family of two or three. Another great advantage is that leftovers will be perfect for cutting as croutons, something we do often. I know I will be using my pan all the time now, not only with sourdough but other types of bread too. I am thinking a marbled charcoal and white in the near future..

Elaine, thank you for that much needed push to put my baking toy to good use!

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