SOURDOUGH PAIN DE CAMPAGNE

Sourdough Pain de Campagne image

Enjoy this traditional French country sourdough loaf with a lovely blend of red fife, rye and bread flours. The recipe is easy to follow, employs best practices from some of our bread experiments here at Breadtopia, and the hydration is manageable, helping even beginners shape the dough with ease and achieve a nice crumb.

Provided by Melissa Johnson

Categories Bread

Time 2h5m

Yield 1 loaf

Number Of Ingredients 6

Ingredients

300g bread flour (2 1/4 cups)
80g home-milled red fife wheat berries or whole grain red fife wheat flour (1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp)
20g home-milled rye berries or whole grain rye flour (2 1/2 Tbsp)
310g water (1 1/3 cups)
80g sourdough starter (1/4 cup)
8g salt (1 1/2 tsp)

Steps:

Autolyse
Mix the flours and water until incorporated. Cover and set aside 30-90 minutes (see notes).
Adding Starter and Salt
Sprinkle about half the salt on your dough, fold the dough over itself and then sprinkle the other half of the salt on the dough. Finally, fold the dough again and add your starter to the top and around the dough.
Work the salt and starter into the dough with both hands by gently pressing, stretching and squeezing. Pause if the dough starts to tear. Cover when finished.
Gluten Development and Bulk Fermentation
Let the dough rest 20-30 minutes after mixing in the starter and salt.
Then perform at intervals of 30-60 minutes: 1 round of coil folding, 1 lamination, and 2-3 more rounds of coil folding. (See videos of coil folding and lamination after the recipe instructions.) The dough should begin to feel bubbly and crackly by the final coil fold. If you prefer traditional stretching and folding, that will work too. However, if you are going to laminate the dough as suggested, do it relatively early in the process.
From the point of mixing in salt and starter, my gluten development was spread over 4 hours, and the dough only fermented for an additional 40 minutes after the last coil fold. My kitchen temperature was in the high 70s, though, and depending on your starter strength and room temperature, you may need more or less time.
Preshape, Bench Rest and Shaping
Using wet fingers or a dough scraper, remove your dough from the bowl and onto a lightly floured counter.
Shape the dough into a ball, cover and let rest about 25 minutes.
Lightly flour your proofing basket.
Flour and flip over your relaxed dough, and then shape it into a batard or boule (or oblong batard).
Place the dough in your proofing basket seam-side up.
Final Proof
Numerous proofing strategies are valid. For this loaf, I proofed at room temperature for 45 minutes, and then in the refrigerator for 9 hours.
Baking
Preheat your oven and baking vessel to 500F for 30 minutes.
Flip your dough from the proofing basket onto parchment paper (or directly into your hot baking vessel). Score the top of the dough, and lift the parchment into the baking vessel.
Bake for
20 minutes at 500F covered
8-10 minutes at 450F covered
5-10 minutes at 450F uncovered
The internal temperature of your finished bread should be over 205F.