Teaches Bread Baking

Apollonia Poilâne

Recounting the story of the bakery started by her grandfather in 1932 and expanded by her father before taking the reins, Apollonia introduces herself and her revered Parisian bakery and explains what you’ll learn in the class.

Meet Your Instructor

Learn some of Apollonia’s core baking philosophies—including using all of one’s senses—as well as practical guidelines for ingredients and equipment. 

Baking à la Poilâne

Apollonia demonstrates her French at-home starter, demystifying how to build and maintain a leaven and explaining the richness it lends to loaves.

Sourdough Starter

Using the sourdough starter made in the previous lesson, Apollonia shares the secrets to mastering Poilâne’s crown jewel—its world-famous country-style wheat loaf—from mixing to proofing and shaping.

Poilâne-Style Wheat Loaf: Mixing & Shaping

Apollonia puts the finishing touches on her wheat loaf—including baking and a scoring tutorial—and walks you through a side-by-side loaf analysis of common baking issues. 

Poilâne-Style Wheat Loaf: Scoring & Baking 

Apollonia introduces you to the Poilâne approach to rye: a rich, floral loaf leavened by the same starter used for the wheat loaf.

Pain de mie literally translates to “bread of crumb.” With this first yeast-based recipe, Apollonia demonstrates how using a delicate hand results in a loaf with an irresistible, cloud-like texture.

Pain de Mie

Apollonia demonstrates the way to achieve the quintessential airy texture and perfectly domed tops of this French favorite while reflecting on time spent honing her brioche technique as a young apprentice in the bakehouse at Poilâne.

Brioche

An Apollonia original, this corn flour bread is a recipe she spent a decade refining. She shares her process for making the gluten-free and vegan loaf, originally inspired by college dinners at Harvard.

Savory Corn Flour Bread

Demonstrating an all-time favorite from Poilâne’s sister café, Apollonia shares the recipe for her open-faced ham-and-cheese sandwich and her hack for perfectly toasted slices of bread.

Fresh Bread: Sourdough Wheat Tartines

Apollonia shares her savory approach to using dry bread in this tomato-and-curry-studded French toast, a departure from the typically sweet version.

Dry Bread: Savory Pain de Mie Pain Perdu

Swapping oats for dried bread, Apollonia introduces an innovative riff on granola, a great use for loaves that are no longer fresh.

Dry Bread: Sourdough Wheat & Rye Granola

Apollonia demonstrates two techniques for turning stale bread into delicious croutons: one oven-baked, the other pan-fried.

Stale Bread: Crouton Variations

Apollonia shares her reimagined version of a Caesar salad featuring richly marinated brioche croutons that become the star of the show.

Stale Bread: Caesar Salad With Flavored Brioche Croutons

Apollonia replaces cheese and pine nuts with breadcrumbs and walnuts in this at once creative and surprisingly true-to-form take on pesto.

Stale Bread: Breadcrumbs & Sourdough Wheat Pesto

Poilâne has a rich history of collaboration with artists, including Apollonia’s father’s friendship with Dalí. Apollonia reflects on the relationship between bread and art, and shows you how to embellish loaves with leaves, roses, and letters.

Bread as Art: Decorating Your Loaves

In this concluding lesson, Apollonia shows you how to make Poilâne’s popular grain-based cookies, affectionately named punitions, or punishments, because you can’t eat just one.

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