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.