I'm slowly working my way through the bread section of Michel Suas' terrific book AB&P and found this interesting bread with an interesting history.
Pain Meunier: (Miller's bread), the loaf has all of the components of wheat (white flour, whole wheat flour, wheat germ and cracked wheat)
. The following brief description of this bread, taken from Michel Suas book “Advanced Bread and Pastry”, appears at the beginning of his formula for pain meunier:
“To honor and thank their millers for delivering consistent flour, bakers of old created pain meunier, or Miller’s bread. The formula was creatively designed to involve all the components of the kernel of wheat in the dough. As a result, in addition to possessing great flavor, this bread also has exceptional nutritional value."
It's a great bread and fun to make. I doubled Mr. Suas' "Test" formula and made 4 pounds of dough, divided the dough into three equal part and made three loaves. I used 2 unlined willow German brotforms and 1 plastic (green) brotform. The loaf proofed in the green plastic brotform, because of its shape, got a higher rise (photo no. 7, rear loaf) but doesn't have the character or markings that the other two loaves (front two) got from the unlined willow baskets.
I used a K.A. mixer to get the pate fermentee and grain roughly mixed with final dough . Gave it a 20 minute rest, then did a final mix using the "slap and fold" method (Bertinet) then during bulk fermentation gave the dough 3 stretch and folds at 20 minute intervals. Let it final proof for another 20 minutes (after the 3 stretch and folds), then divided, shaped and placed it into the brotforms. It final proofed for 1 hour, then I scored it and into a preheated 450 deg. F. oven with a cup of boiling water into a cast iron skillet for a short blast of stream. It baked for 30 minutes, turning the loaves midway in the baking cycle. It's a great tasting bread with great texture (tender with a nutty flavor from the cracked grain) and nice crust.
Michel Suas' Pain Meunier - Advanced Bread and Pastry