Panera Bread Freshly Baked Artisan and Specialty Bread Shapes

This is how Panera Bread shapes up. Panera Bread bakes its artisan and specialty breads fresh everyday. On Panera Bread's website it doesn't say what is done with bread leftover from the day. "Our bakers work through the night, shaping and scoring the dough by hand, to bring you fresh-baked bread every morning and throughout the day." That's the closest information Panera Bread discloses concerning what it does with any possible leftover bread.

However, unlike true French bread, the breads Panera Bread bakes will stay fresh longer than a day. Still, the fact Panera Bread bakes its breads fresh everyday means, I'd venture to say, more than likely, you're getting bread that is no more than a couple or few days old, if not freshly baked and used that day.

Unless, each Panera Bread store, and Panera Bread on the whole as a company, has a very tight rein on how much bread is needed daily, and all possible fluctuations to that amount remain equal, it's difficult to imagine a company and its stores, along with its franchised stores, throwing away day old bread that doesn't really get old for at least a couple or few days after it's made. After all, some persons have no problem stretching out the meaning of the phrase, "freshly baked." Plus, you don't throw bread (money) out the door.

What are the shapes of Panera Bread's freshly baked artisan and specialty breads? Of its artisan and specialty breads, there are seven shapes: baguette, bread bowl, demi, miche, loaf, xl (extra large) loaf, and roll.

Let's shake the flour off of these shapes a little more, and see what forms.

Baguette: The French word baguette means stick or wand. Shaping dough into a baguette shape means the stick of bread is finished with the maximum amount of crust.

Bread Bowl: A bread bowl is just what is sounds like: a round, spherically-shaped, piece of bread meant to have its center cut out and filled with soup or another food.

Demi: While Panera Bread doesn't state on its site what shape of bread it's offering half, or demi, the French use the word demi in combination with other words. Still, Panera Bread is offering half of one of its freshly baked artisan and specialty breads.

Miche: Here's another Panera Bread with no real application to shape. Though, it's beginning to be used in place of la boule, or ball shaped bread. Too, while the French language is a fiercely guarded language that doesn't evolve or change much at all, it does have its slangs: miche being one of them for butt cheek.

Loaf: Again, another word that's somewhat out of place, in that while it's come to be known in modern times as bread in an oblong shape, it's actually even more broadly used as a catch-all word for all sorts of bread shapes. Too, it's actually not a French word, but a Germanic word. Then again, neither is bread bowl a French word. Still, even though there's a lot of fusion, so to speak, going on with this company concept, there's lots of hangers-on to the former name, Au Bon Pain, and subsequent carry-over of a French concept, or theme, to this also French language-named concept, or company, Panera Bread.

XL Loaf: Extra large of some shape of bread, again, probably the oblong pan shape.

Roll: Once more, another vague explanation to what shape bread is Panera Bread is offering. Is it a round sandwich roll, long sandwich roll, square roll, kaiser roll, square roll, etc.

Yet, there you have it: Panera Bread freshly baked artisan and specialty bread shapes rolled out for your casual perusal.