Poilâne (Apollonia Poilâne)

Staff Pick: Third-generation baker Apollonia Poilâne’s professional baking career began in tragedy when both of her parents died in a crash when she was just eighteen. She immediately took up the mantle of the family business and has continued to grow the legacy of Poilâne from Paris to around the globe. For those of you who are bread-curious, Poilâne presents just a small handful of bread recipes to work and rework and savor. And if you’d like to see how your loaves stack up to the real deal, it is possible to overnight a loaf straight from Poilâne. Beyond bread, this book is full of simple but perfected French baking and daytime recipes.  -Elizabeth

To food lovers the world over, a trip to Paris is not complete without a visit to Poilâne. Ina Garten raves about the bread’s “extraordinary quality.” Martha Stewart says the P in Poilâne stands for “perfect.” For the first time, Poilâne provides detailed instructions so bakers can reproduce its unique “hug-sized” sourdough loaves at home, as well as the bakery’s other much-loved breads and pastries. It tells the story of how Apollonia Poilâne, the third-generation baker and owner, took over the global business at age eighteen and steered it into the future as a Harvard University freshman after her parents were killed in a helicopter crash. Beyond bread, Apollonia includes recipes for pastries such as the bakery’s exquisite but unfussy tarts and butter cookies. In recipes that use bread as an ingredient, she shows how to make the most from a loaf, from crust to crumb. In still other dishes, she explores the world of grains: rice, corn, barley, oats, and millet. From sunup to sundown, Poilâne traces the hours in a baker’s day, blending narrative, recipes, and Apollonia’s philosophy of bread.