In this week’s (early) “Tasty Tuesdays” vanity post, I’m going to be featuring a recipe for “the Pullman Loaf”, which, according to a very interesting article on the cookscook.com Web site, was a loaf of particular bread that was “bred to travel”. Even though I’d love to go into the very interesting history of this particular loaf of bread, I’m just going to provide a link to the article where I found this week’s featured recipe AFTER the recipe itself. So… Without further ado, here’s the recipe from Edward Bottone at thecookscook.com:
Pullman Sandwich Loaf
Ingredients
- 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
- 3 Tablespoons dehydrated potato flakes
- 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (The Diamond Crystal brand is less salty than other brands.)
- 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2/3 cup lukewarm milk
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Directions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, dry milk, potato flakes, salt, sugar, and yeast. Add 1 cup lukewarm water, milk and butter. Stir to mix. Using your hands or a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, knead to form a smooth, soft dough.
- Transfer dough to a lightly greased bowl. Cover, and allow the dough to rise in a warm spot until puffy and nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.
- Lightly grease a 13-inch pain de pie pan (Pullman Loaf pan) and lid. Gently deflate dough and transfer to a lightly greased work surface. Shape into a 13-inch log and fit it into the pan. Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow dough to rise until it’s just below the lip of the pan, 45 minutes to 1 hour or longer (the longer the rise the better the flavor).
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the plastic and slide the cover onto the pan. Bake the bread for 25 minutes. Remove the lid and return the bread to the oven to bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, until it is a deep tan color with an internal temperature on an instant-read thermometer of 190 degrees F.
- Remove the bread from the oven and turn out onto a rack to cool completely. Store in a plastic bag, or wrapped at room temperature, for 4 days, or slice and freeze for up to 3 months.
So, there you have it: a recipe for Pullman Loaf Sandwich Bread, and now I’m going to share with you the promised link in case you wanted to take a “deeper dive” into the fascinating history of the Pullman Loaf Sandwich bread, which was “bred to travel”.
https://www.thecookscook.com/article/the-pullman-loaf-legacy
Don’t know about you, but after I read through the history of this bread, I wanted to do two things:
- Make a loaf of this bread (so much so that I purchased a pullman loaf pan (the 9″ not the 13″ one, but if I like it I might splurge on the larger pan) just for this purpose!
- Hop on the closest Amtrak train that I can find, so I can experience train travel first hand — though I’m sure it won’t be the same as train travel was when Pullman Loaf Sandwich Bread was offered to passengers traveling in Pullman cars!
I hope you enjoy making this kind of bread as well as the fascinating history about its creation! As always, I’d love to hear from you, so please take a moment to leave me a comment below.