Monkey bread, aka pain de mie

Fran started calling this monkey bread… more accurately I think she meant “ape bread”, as she thought the cross-section looked like a chimp’s face (and chimps are apes – not monkeys!).

Actually, it’s another Roux brothers recipe – their pain de mie, a French white bread. It’s a fairly standard dough made with 750g of flour to 30g of fresh yeast, enriched by the edition of 3 eggs and 60g butter. I heartily recommend purchasing their book, The Roux Brothers on Patisserie for the full recipe!

It was rather yummy, perfect for breakfast with some jam or chocolate spread. It looked funky too as I played around with braiding the dough, then baking in a  loaf tin. A too small loaf tin – hence the chimp face.