Moms Country Bread
My mom mailed me a recipe printed from the king arthur flour website which was sent in to them by bread enthusiast Maura Brickman called Pain de Campagne I was intrigued when I saw it made use of a minuscule amount of unfed sourdough but it was only after I started assembling ingredients that I realized it was 80% water and the recipe was designed to minimize the amount of work and attention.
The original recipe was 3 pages long and I reduced it to the core steps. I can't help but think that the king arthur company were responsible for making it seem so complicated. If you've ever baked bread you would realize the recipe was designed to minimize fuss.
The long rise in the fridge will develop the taste of the yeast and helps hold it together for when you slash the top and slide it onto the hot baking stone.
This recipe has become the basis of all my bread baking and I've tweaked it to make savory breads (the medieval walnut bread), croissants, and white chocolate orange rolls. I will continue to tweak it as necessary but if you've never made bread this is a good start.
This makes a single medium small loaf.
Total Preparation Time
Total preparation time is 15min of work + 24 hours of proofing
- Assemble the ingredients - 5min
- Stretch and Folding three times over 45min
- Proof 24 hours
- Bake 26min
Ingredients
- Flour - 500g
- Water - 400g
- Salt - 10g
- Starter - 20g
- Corn Meal or semolina flour - enough to dust the bottom of the loaf
Method
- Mix the ingredients until they just come together and pour into a bowl
- Cover and let rest 15min
- Stretch and Fold
- Cover and let rest 15min
- Stretch and Fold
- Cover and let rest 15min
- Stretch and Fold
- Cover and let rest 12 hours
- Gather into a boule and transfer to a heavily floured banneton
- Put banneton into a plastic bag and put into the fridge for 12 hours
- Pre-heat oven to 450 with a pizza stone or cast iron tray
- Turn cold bread onto pizza spatula, slash top, brush with water, and slide onto hot iron tray
- Bake for 26-30min until the bottom edges curl up
Tips
- I use a cast iron baking tray preheated to 450. It makes a nice crispy crust on the bottom and I think you could two stacked cookie sheets in a pinch.
- I also spray water into my oven as it's baking. If you can bake in hot steam the crust will turn out better. My crust is pretty good (though not as good as it would get in a commercial oven) and I'm not sure if the spray bottle is actually doing anything.
Notes
- Try cooking on convection roast instead of bake to get the upper crust darker. I've been broiling for 90sec at the end to give it a dark crust but it may not be necessary if roasted.
- Try cooking one to a very dark brown to see if it carmalizes more of the flour in the crust.
- This could be better in a pre-heated covered dutch oven at 475
- I could maybe try in a smaller, buttered and floured, cast iron pan to help it retain some shape