
Are you a fun of rye bread? I guess not many people LOVE it, but just a second! Check the portion of rye in the bread! Dark rye bread usually have more than 50% rye flour, so if you see a little bit brown rye bread, it should be less than 50% and I probably say 30%. If the bread is more tanned than brown, it will be closer to 50%.
However! Why don’t we bake it to find out your own best portion for your baking journey?! I do not add caraway seed in my bread. There are a couple of reasons, if you are interested, please leave a comment!
And another reason to bake Pain de Campagne is as you see before Thanksgiving, the price of butter is sky high! I am not talking about a fancy, organic butter, just a butter which has some(?) preservatives and not the greatest kind, but not a margarine, it is $4 per pound? OMG!Let’s bake non-butter bread. I am furiously against butter now!! I may need to think of buying cream and shake it for a couple of hours!
Already, here is the ingredient.
<Ingredient>
All purpose flour 1cup
Rye Flour 1/4cup
Water 150cc
Brown sugar 1.5T
Salt 1t
Dried yeast 1t
Raisin or dried cranberry 3/4cup
***** the original Pain de Campagne does not contain any sugar, but I thought it might taste better to add for rye flour and also helps it to raise.
***** the amount of water, please be careful. Watch out how the dough does, sometimes the flour itself already contain much water, it is invisible, so slowly add water and stop when the dough you think has enough or controllable. The true pain de campagne uses a lot of water and dough is really watery and saggy. And I am not goot at dealing with these dough at all. So I tend to use less water and keep the dough still controllable in my hands.
The steps are easy. If you have a bread machine, let it sit there and finish the first raise. You can not expect to make it double size from the original amount since it has rye and raisin. 75 -85% of double size is still good. If you knead by your hands, you do not have to knead, mix all in a bowl and add water and let it sit. It might take longer to the first raise, but check it every 30 min and if you see any raise, smash the air bubbles!
After the first raise, let the gas(air bubble) out and reshape it and move to the second raise. This is 40 min! It does not matter how big it raises. If you keep the second raise more than 1 hour, your bread will smell like yeast. Make sure to start preheating your oven tat 450F, do not forget to heat the pan, too!
After the second raise 40 min, design the bread! I usually cut in cross with a knife. Use your sharp knife like a saw again and again. Spray olive oil in the crack. (Some say this is cheating… but you know it looks better after bake!)
Reduce the heat to 400F and take the preheated pan out and let the dough sit and bake for 15 – 18 min. If you want to, you can add some nuts and other dried fruits! Again, then the raise is not going to be as big as plain!
I did not take pictures while baking this time, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!