Pain

The staff of life although the 'stuff' of life might be the more contemporary phrasing.

It's an odd thing, when in the U.K. Mr. S-C and I make all our bread but on my own in France I almost never bother. It's not because I pop out to the boulangerie every day to pick up a crisp baguette, that treat is reserved for the one day a week when I do the shopping. The rest of the time, if I go to the right shop, I have a loaf of a very nice multi-grained and seeded sourdough or if I'm elsewhere a loaf or two of nothing in particular, often sliced and kept in the freezer.

I suppose it's because I'm lazy. I've got used to the magnificent Santos bread mixing machine we have in Newport Pagnell and the thought of hand kneading makes me yawn. On the other hand, although I've read many of the recipes on the web for no-knead bread all that faffing around with hot dutch ovens seems merely to be moving the effort in some other direction.

Anyway, I put bread on my menu plan for this week and bread is what I've made. I really truly meant to follow a recipe that my friend Mac recommended which is published on her Nibblous site but that laziness got in the way again. I reverted to the never fail method of flour, water, yeast and salt which is the basic definition of bread.

For this loaf then, you'll need 500g of flour. I used some organic semi-wholemeal type 110. You can find a definition of this at Practically Edible a site I just googled and will investigate more later. It's quite difficult to get wholemeal flours in France.

Add to the flour 320ml water, a packet of instant yeast and about 6g salt. That's it. Mix it up well and then do the kneading. They always say 10 minutes and they're probably right but if you have a feel for dough you'll know when it's ready. I stopped after 8 minutes (lazy, right?)

Leave to rise in a warmish place for as long as it takes. I gave this about 90 minutes. Then knead it gently for a minute or so and shape into the final loaf form. I considered improvising a banetton but thought that letting it rise free form would be easier.

My oven isn't great. It's a bottled gas powered one in a relatively small and cheap free standing cooker. Once lit, it took nearly half an hour to hit 250C making me shudder at the thought of the gas consumed. This was pretty much all the loaf needed for a second rise so I quickly slashed the top and got it into the heat.

Give your bread 10 to 15 minutes at this inferno of a temperature (real bread ovens get even hotter) then turn down the gas and let it cook through at about 180C, say another 30 minutes making 45 minutes total. Don't be afraid to give it 10 minutes more.

It turned out pretty well, though I say it myself. Purists will notice that the dough was a little young, there are signs of unplanned splits around the base caused by too much spring in the oven but I'm happy enough.

Now, to start a sourdough culture to make proper Pain de Campagne.