Apollonia Poilâne’s Savory Pain de Mie Pain Perdu Recipe

As a child, Apollonia Poilâne wanted to be a baker in the morning, like her father, and an architect in the afternoon, like her mother. At 16, she began apprenticing at the bakery that bore her name. In 2002, when she was 18 years old, both of her parents, Lionel and Irena “Ibu” Poilâne, died in a helicopter crash in Western France. The next day, Apollonia, with her younger sister Athena still in high school, took over operations of Poilâne.

She attended Harvard University the following year while running the bakery from her dorm room in Cambridge. She had bread overnighted to her every Monday and flew to Paris once a month for important meetings. Apollonia has put her own stamp on the family business. She developed the bakery’s first gluten-free offering, published a cookbook showcasing bread’s potential as an ingredient in other recipes, and ushered Poilâne into the social media age. Poilâne ships loaves worldwide, with loyal customers from New York to California placing orders for bread direct from Paris. Apollonia now oversees 160 employees at five locations across Paris and London.

Savory pain de mie pain perdu is a French toast recipe using several-days-old stale bread. It’s most popular in France and the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. There are multiple ways to prepare this recipe, but almost all non-vegan versions use an egg mixture as a form of batter.

Since bread forms the basis of the meal, you can also expect the dish to be high in carbohydrates. Some chefs prefer to keep the dish completely savory, forgoing typical French toast ingredients—like maple syrup, whipped cream, and fruits—while others balance salty and sweet textures in their versions of the meal.

Savory pain de mie pain perdu is a unique take on French toast. Consider these tips for using leftover thick slices of bread to their ultimate potential:

• Alternate bread types. You can use all sorts of different bread to make savory pain de mie pain perdu. Try a French bread baguette, a challah loaf, or leftover brioche. You might prefer a crispy taste—if this is the case, opt for thinner sliced bread. If you’d like the meal to taste more like traditional French toast, use thick slices of bread instead.
• Pair the dish with fruit. If you’d like to balance the savory texture of this dish with some sweetness, consider utilizing fruit. Blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries can help balance out the flavors. Douse the top of your pain de mie pain perdu with a custardy sauce or whipped cream for extra sweetness.
• Try different recipes. Individualize your approach to making this dish. Some people prefer using a baking sheet, while others would rather fry their bread in a pan with unsalted butter. Both whole milk and heavy cream can give you an ample amount of calcium while also laying the base for your batter. To balance out the savory texture with some sweetness, think about using confectioners’ sugar or fresh vanilla extract.