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Pullman Bread
To make Pullman bread, it is necessary to run the dough through rolls or brakes. This practice makes the dough more elastic and better bread will be the result.
Flour, 100 lbs.
Formula Liquid milk, 63 to 65 lbs.
Salt, 134 lbs.
Yeast, 1¾ lbs.
Sugar, 1/4 lbs.
Malt extract, 17/4 lbs.
Shortening, 2 lbs.
Method Dissolve the yeast and malt extract in 3 qts. of milk and place to one side. Put the balance of the milk into the mixer, add the salt and sugar and then stir. Now add the flour, begin mixing and then add the yeast. After these ingredients have been incorporated, add the shortening and continue mixing until the dough is smooth. The dough should have a temperature of 78 to 80 degrees when mixed. If a four hour fermentation period is required to mature the dough, this period may be divided as follows: First rising, 27/4 hours; second rising, 1 hour; third rising, ½ hour. Allow the dough to rest 15 minutes and then divide. In making Pullman bread, the dough should be run through rolls or brakes after each rising. This will materially improve the grain, texture and color of the crumb. It also produces a larger volume.
This is a commercial bakery formula written for a mixer and a dough brake, with quantities set against 100 lb of flour. It converts cleanly to a home batch if you work in baker's percentages.
- Scaling downTreat flour as 100% and divide everything by 100 to get percentages: milk 63-65%, salt about 1.75%, yeast about 1.75%, shortening 2%. For a single large Pullman loaf use 500 g flour, 320 g milk, 9 g salt, 9 g fresh (compressed) yeast or about 3 g instant, 10 g shortening, plus sugar and malt to taste.
- Ambiguous figuresThe salt, sugar and malt extract quantities in this printing are unreliable. Salt at 1.75-2% of flour weight is the standard bakery range; sugar and malt in a milk-enriched pan bread are usually 2-6% and 0.5-1% respectively.
- Malt extractThe recipe does not specify the type; a diastatic malt syrup, which feeds the yeast as well as colouring the crust, is the likeliest reading given it is dissolved with the yeast. A teaspoon of diastatic malt powder per 500 g flour is a workable substitute; non-diastatic malt or barley malt syrup adds flavor and color but no enzyme activity, and honey can stand in if you want neither.
- ShorteningIn this period this means lard or a neutral hydrogenated vegetable fat. Butter works, though it softens the crumb slightly differently; add it after the dough has come together, as the method directs, so the gluten develops first.
- Rolls or brakesThe hinge of the recipe. A brake is a pair of powered rollers that sheet the dough flat; passing it through after each rising degasses it and aligns the gluten, which is what gives Pullman bread its fine, close, even crumb. At home, press the dough out flat with a rolling pin and fold it in thirds after each rise for the same effect.
- Dough temperature78-80F at the end of mixing is a real target, not a suggestion, since the four-hour fermentation schedule assumes it. Adjust the milk temperature to hit it; in a warm kitchen use milk straight from the refrigerator.
- The fermentation scheduleRead as a total of about four hours in three stages, with the dough knocked down and sheeted between each. The printed figures for the first rising have lost their fraction; 2.5 hours, then 1 hour, then 0.5 hour adds up correctly.
- Pan and bakingA Pullman pan is a straight-sided rectangular pan with a sliding lid, which is what makes the loaf square. Fill it no more than two-thirds and proof until the dough is about a half-inch from the lid. The formula stops at dividing and says nothing about baking; modern practice for a lidded pan loaf is roughly 400F for 35-45 minutes, to an internal temperature of 200-205F.
- YieldAs written this is roughly 170 lb of dough, around 100 pieces of about 1.7 lb. The formula gives no scaling weight; 900 g of dough fills a standard 13-inch Pullman pan.
The Pullman loaf takes its name from the Pullman Palace Car Company's sleeping and dining cars, whose galley kitchens had almost no space: a lidded rectangular pan bakes a square loaf that stacks tightly and slices into neat uniform squares with no domed top to trim, which is the story generally given for the name. The same loaf is the French pain de mie, a bread valued for crumb rather than crust. Formulas like this one assume equipment a household never had, and the insistence on running the dough through a brake after every rise suggests what commercial bakers of the day may have been after: not flavor so much as a fine, silky, machine-even crumb that made good toast and better sandwiches.