Pain de campagne

Freshly baked bread is the ultimate of comfort foods.

[At least that’s my excuse for making it while I should have been packing.]

Pain de campagne is a country loaf made using a mild sourdough starter. I also added some sunflower seeds which smelled fantastic while baking.

I already had a starter but you’re going to want to make it at least a day before baking your loaf of bread.

Starter:

• 5 g fresh or 2.5g dried yeast
• 135 ml cold water
• 100 g white bread flour
• 100 g rye flour

For the dough (this makes one loaf):

• the starter
• 170 ml tap water
• 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds + any other seeds you like
• 235g white bread flour
• 32 g whole wheat flour (here you could also use rye)
• 11 g fresh yeast (or 5.5g dried yeast)
• 4 g sea salt (even though I love fleur de sel, you need a little finer here)

1. If you’re making starter, combine yeast and water and, separately, the two flours. Add water mixture to the flour and mix well. It will be thick and somewhat unappetizing looking. Cover bowl with a damp tea towel and leave overnight to ferment.

2. For the dough – combine starter with tap water, mix well. By hand or with a mixer, combine yeast, flours and salt (keep separate from yeast), seeds and starter. Knead/mix well (it will be really sticky at first but you’ll notice it elasticizing as you knead or mix). Put your muscles into it to activate the gluten!

3. Put into a bowl (if not already in one), cover and set aside to rise in a warm place for 30-40 minutes.

4. Shape dough into a ball and place on a well-greased baking sheet. Cover with the bowl and set aside in a warm place for 1 hour.

(in the meantime, preheat your oven to 240C (465F) )

5. Dust loaf with flour and use a knife to slash with shallow criss-cross cuts in the middle. Put a small bowl of water on the baking sheet, next to your loaf. The resulting steam will make sure you get a nice crusty bread.

5. Put the baking sheet into the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 210C (410F).

6. Bake for about 35 minutes until the crust is brown and the loaf is cooked through.

I have visitors this week – the non-cooking kind, which is increasingly rare – so may have to sit out this week’s FFwD unfortunately! Really excited about this month’s collection though, and have to make sure to copy out all of the recipes before packing my books up for shipping on Monday. Hope to catch up next week.