Pain D'Avignon shares baking secrets

Gwenn Friss, Cape Cod Times
·2 min read

I often buy bread or pastries at Pain D'Avignon to bring along as a thank-you-for-having-me gift at parties. But this year, I will be able to also bring some of those recipes.

After more than a decade of musing on it, Uliks Fehmiu with co-author Kathleen Hackett has produced "The Pain D'Avignon Baking Book: A War, An Unlikely Bakery and a Master Class in Bread" (Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, $40).

Uliks Fehmiu bakes bread in one of Pain D'Avignon's oversized ovens. More than 60 million loaves have been baked there since 1992.
Uliks Fehmiu bakes bread in one of Pain D'Avignon's oversized ovens. More than 60 million loaves have been baked there since 1992.

The glossy book has photography by Ed Anderson and story illustrations by David Polonsky. The bread, rolls and luscious desserts, including chocolate olive oil cake, are all shown in magically lit photography. Polonsky's work, that of a master graphic novelist, tells the story of how Fehmiu and his friends grew up in what was then Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and escaped a war to end up with a bakery on Cape Cod even though they didn't know how to make bread.

But they taught themselves in a trial-by-error scenario after opening Pain D'Avignon (now Pain D'Avignon Restaurant Boulangerie) on Hinckley Road in Hyannis in 1992.

"We really started understanding after we had the bakery," Fehmiu said in a telephone interview with the Cape Cod Times from the New York bakery he opened after Pain D'Avignon.

Pain Francese from Pain D'Avignon shows the crevices created by fermentation.
Pain Francese from Pain D'Avignon shows the crevices created by fermentation.

"For us, it was a lot of luck. Water, flour, salt: It's as simple as that. You look at the product and make adjustments," he said.

One of the secrets of the sourdough Fehmiu and his partners made was to rest the dough longer, because increasing the fermentation time created those big airy loaves for which Pain D'Avignon became well-known.

Learning to make traditional sourdough set Pain D'Avignon a place at the table of top-notch baking.
Learning to make traditional sourdough set Pain D'Avignon a place at the table of top-notch baking.

Fehmiu is also an actor, known best for his work in Serbia. The book is the story of the lives he and his friends made, as well as the ingredients they put into their breads. It is also playful, with photographer Anderson recreating the famous crosswalk scene from The Beatles but substituting bakers for rock stars.

People can buy the cookbook at local bookstores including Titcomb's Bookshop in Sandwich and The Brewster Book Store. The book is also available for purchase at Pain d'Avignon in Hyannis, so you can bring both the bread and the directions for baking-inclined friends.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Local bakery shares its story in Pain D'Avignon baking book