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The Poilâne® signature
Manual gestures test
Sometimes, when an artisanal company expands, it abandons traditional practices and moves to an "industrial scale" that multiplies machines and creates assembly lines where the division of labor is distributed to multiple tasks. This is inconceivable at Poilâne®. We do not cut the work into assembly line tasks. On the contrary, our bakers are responsible for their batches from start to finish. Consequently, they are personally implicated in the production because they derive a completely legitimate personal satisfaction and pride from what they and their hands produce. This is a part of the nobility of our artisanal craft.
THE KNOW-HOW
A HANDCRAFTED PRODUCTION
Once the necessary ingredients to make a loaf have been mixed and kneaded, the baker transfers the dough from the kneading machine to the fermentation box, a wooden box in which an environment has been created, from one batch to the next, that encourages fermentation. Even when empty, it retains a slightly sour aroma reminiscent of a light beer or semi-hard cheese. The baker removes the dough from this receptacle by taking pieces about the size of a loaf. This is done entirely by hand, allowing the baker to judge the quality and strength of each piece as they handle it. Poilâne®'s bakers perform all the steps in the production of Poilâne® loaves by hand: placing them in the kneading machine, weighing them, shaping them, putting them in the oven, and removing them from the oven.
THE QUALITY
UNIQUE AND AUTHENTIC PRODUCTS
Poilâne® bread is the result of a whole range of traditional savoir-faire . It is not a standardized product. On the contrary, no two loaves are exactly alike. When it's time to bake, the baker places two loaves of bread onto the wooden shovel, then, just before putting them in the oven, traces the letter "P" on their surface with his blade. The shape of this "P" - both the first letter of the name Poilâne®, and also that of the word bread, “pain” in French. A true tradition inherited from the 19th century!