French Country Bread (pain de campagne)

French-style country load

French country bread (or pain de campagne) is a traditional French bread made all over the country. Its usually made from white flour, wholemeal or rye flour and an old dough starter (often called a sponge).

In bakeries there is always a bit of old bread hanging around that can be used but at home you’ll need to plan ahead before you’re ready to make this bread. Once you have the sponge up and running you can refresh it every day or so and make a new batch of bread.

The old dough/sponge is made a couple of days ahead of the final loaf so that it develops lots of structure and flavour.

As the sponge has been fermenting for a few days it develops a lot of flavour and structure that will give the final bread a bit hit of extra flavour.

For the sponge

Made 3 days ahead of the final dough

Ingredient	Baker’s %	Weight (g)
Plain white flour	100	200
Dried yeast	0.4	1.6
Salt	2	4
Water	60	120

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together and knead the dough  kneaded to stretch the gluten until it becomes elastic and you can see a gluten window form
• Rest overnight in fridge
• Mix a fresh recipe and add the half of the previous day’s sponge (discard the unused half)
• Rest overnight in fridge
• Repeat the process one more time

Pain de campagne dough

Enough for 2 loaves of 450g each

Ingredient	Baker’s %	Weight (g)
Plain white flour	45	250
Strong white flour	27	150
Rye flour	27	150
Dried yeast	0.67	1.6
Malt extract	2	11
Water	64	350
Add two minutes before end of mixing
Salt	2	11
Sponge	50	225

Method

• Mix all the ingredients (except the salt and sponge) together in a stand mixer on low speed for 3 mins until the ingredients are well combined
• Mix at one speed higher for 9 minutes
• Then add the salt and sponge and mix for a further 2 minutes on the second speed – you should see a good gluten window at this stage
• Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour
• Divide the dough in half (roughly 450g pieces), knock back each piece of dough and roll into a ball. Leave to rest for 15 minutes
• Roll them again into balls and transfer to a well floured proving basket or a bowl lined with a well floured tea towel and leave to double in size [the top of the loaf in the bowl will be on the bottom of the loaf]
• Heat the oven to 250˚C
• Transfer the loaves gently to a baking tray and make some slashes in whatever pattern you like on the top – this helps to control the rise of the dough in the oven
• Add some water to a tray in the oven to create steam (this helps to keep the bread’s crust for forming too soon so allowing it to rise more)
• Bake at
  250˚C for 15 mins
  220˚C for 10 mins
  180˚C for 10 mins
• Cool on a rack

Pain Viennoise (Viennese bread)

Star shaped pain viennois ready for proving

Pain Viennoise or Vienna Bread is a soft, slightly sweet white bread. This is a bit like a brioche in style. Read a bit of background on this dough.

In the bakery programme, we shaped the dough into a plaited star shape but you can easily make a baguette or loaf from this dough.

Ingredients

• 600g T45 flour (plain flour)
• 12g salt
• 30g fresh yeast (or 10g dried yeast)
• 60g butter, soft or melted
• 280g water
• 36g sugar
• 30g milk powder
• 72g eggs, beaten

Note – you can use 300g milk to replace the water and milk powder.

Method

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water
2. Sieve together the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre
3. Mix in the yeast mixture, then eggs and butter
4. Knead until a smooth dough is formed (check the gluten window), about 5 minutes with a mixer
5. Leave to rise until it is doubled in size
6. Knock back and divide into whatever size pieces are needed & shape them
7. Prove until doubled in size
8. Bake for 20-25 min at 200˚C. Put a baking tray with some water in the bottom of the oven or add a couple of ice cubes to create steam during the first part of baking to help the bread rise further and colour the crust.

Here’s an example I made at home and shaped into a loaf.

Day 1 – baking course

Today I start the bakery programme
at Le Cordon Bleu in London. I’ve been to a one day workshop at the School before so I know that it’s an amazing place.

I’m really looking forward to learning how to bake the right way and how to make French baguettes, my favourite bread!

The course lasts for 10 days and covers

• Fundamental theory and concepts related to bread making such as fermentation schedules and production processes
• Discussions on ingredient functionality including flour technology, grains and yeast
• Detailed explanation of the baking process
• Applied health and safety
• Leavened wheat doughs
• Traditional French breads e.g. baguette, pain epi, fougasse
• Classic shaping techniques such as fendu, tordu, tabatière, auvergnat, fleur, couronne Bordelaise and pain d’aix
• Non wheat breads
• Rustic French breads including pain de campagne and pain de seigle
• Preferments and use in production
• Cultivation of sour starters with feeder schedule
• Rustic sour dough breads
• International breads including focaccia, pita, lavash, naan, calzone and paratha
• Enriched breads such as brioche and challah
• Pâte levées-feuilletée for viennoiserie production
• Speciality breads – panettone, pandoro, kugelhopf
• Decorative bread techniques – pate morte, pain surprise

I’ll post more as we start baking!

—-

Update on day 1

We started off with a few hours of safety lectures about how to avoid common problems in the kitchen. Chef Dominic then talked to us all about flour, how wheat is turned into flour, constituents of flours (starch, protein, minerals) and types of flours.

We then hit the baking kitchen for a tour of the equipment – deck ovens, blast freezers, giant planetary mixers and retarder provers (temperature controlled cabinets that have programable timers to raise the temperature for long bread proving).

Star shaped pain viennois ready for proving

Chef then showed us how to make pain viennois – a type of white bread with added sugar and butter that resembles Viennese pastries (recipe to follow). We used the pain viennois to make star shaped bread ‘loafs’.

We left the loaves to prove overnight and first thing tomorrow morning (Saturday!) we’ll get them into the ovens!

Update – here is the recipe for the pain viennois.

Irish Barmbrack

A very traditional Irish tea cake, the Barmbrack, is a sweet dough with dried fruit (soaked overnight in tea to plump them up) giving it lots of extra taste and texture. Soft brown sugar gives the brack a rich, dark colour and taste.

Its often eaten in the afternoon, with lots of butter and a hot cup of tea.

Ingredients

• 375g mixed dried fruit (whatever fruits you like best)
• 50ml whiskey
• 250ml cold tea
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 225g plain flour
• 125g brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 egg

Method

1. Soak the fruit overnight in the tea and whiskey mixture
2. Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin
3. Combine the flour, sugar, mixed spice and baking powder and mix well
4. Add the whole egg and mix. Add some of the liquid from the dried fruit and continue to mix to create a dryish batter
5. Stir in the fruit and when everything is thoroughly combined pour into the prepared loaf tin
6. Bake in the middle of the oven for 1 hour
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack. Best eaten a couple of days after baking, keep wrapped in clingfilm.

Mirabelle plum tart

Mirabelle Plum Tart

Mirabelle plums are a speciality of the Lorraine region of France. They are small, smooth, sweet tasting yellow plums with that characteristic slightly sourm plummy taste. Mirabelle plums are harvested from mid-August so about now is the time to use them. Great for making jams and tarts, like the one below which is from Le Cordon Bleu’s website.

Ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry

• 200 g plain flour
• 100 g cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tbsp water

Pastry cream

• 250 ml milk
• 1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthwise
• 3 egg yolks
• 60 g sugar
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp cornflour

Garnish

• 300 g mirabelle plums, halved and stoned

Glaze

• 50 g apricot jam
• 1 tbsp water

Method

1. Prepare the sweet shortcrust pastry. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Into a well at the centre of the mix, add the egg and water and mix roughly to combine
2. Roll out the dough into a circle about 3 to 4 mm thick.  Line the tart mold with the dough, refrigerate for at least 20 minutes
3. Preheat the oven to 160°C
4. Blind bake the pastry shell: Cut out a sheet of baking paper that is slightly larger than the tart mold and fit over the dough, fill with baking beans or rice. Gently press down around the edges to ensure that the paper stays in place against the sides of the mold. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and the baking beans (or rice) and continue to bake for approximately 8 minutes
5. Prepare the pastry cream. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod into the milk, add the pod and bring to the boil. Meanwhile cream the eggs and sugar then add the flour and cornflour. Stir half the milk into the egg mix, then return to the pan and whisk until the cream thickens. [You can use the dried pod to make vanilla sugar by leaving it in a jar of sugar for a few weeks]
6. Garnish: Spread the pastry cream onto the base of the blind-baked pastry shell. Fill with the halved mirabelle plums, arranging them in concentric circles with the cut side uppper-most . Bake for 40 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Place on a wire rack to cool. Remove from the tart mold
7. Glaze: Heat the apricot jam and water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, strain and brush over the top of the plums