What do you do when chilly and damp October-like days creep upon your unsuspecting soul that’s still dressed in summer outfits? After the brightness and busyness of the sunny months, I usually welcome the calmness and respite of darker, deeper days, monotonous rain, and silent head-space. Not this year, however. It all seems too abrupt and hugely unjust, don’t you think?
My solution? Baking some bread.
Having reached the end of a few busy days, last weekend was given to kneading some dough and filling the home with the fragrance of a fresh loaf. It seemed like a good form of rest as well as an adequate response to the inhospitable grayness outside. I started with ‘Cholesterol-cutting bread’ and finished with ‘Paine De Campagne’, both from James Morton’s ‘Brilliant Bread’. It was my first go at both of the recipes and both of them delivered.
Pain de Campagne is also known as French ‘country bread’, apparently. From what I could see in the picture provided in the book, it looked very much like what is considered ‘white bread’ in Lithuania. There is ‘black bread’ (traditional rye sourdough) and there is ‘white bread’ in the Lithuanian psyche. The latter one is not the pure white loaves made solely of white flour, as one might think. (These are still bread, technically, but they are seldom even called that, going instead by the names of ‘bulka‘, batonas, or ragaisis.) If you ask an average Lithuanian for a slice of white bread, what you will get will look like a strongly watered down version of the rye sourdough, achieved my mixing wheat and rye flours.
I was curious to see if Pain de Campagne would turn out to be the Lithuanian ‘white bread’. It was and it wasn’t. I suppose, the main principle is the same – mixing wheat and rye flours. However, the loaf I made following James Morton’s recipe was much lighter, airier, without being too dry. I am thinking this was probably due to the fact that it uses a little bit of sourdough starter, but the main ‘lifting’ is still done by the yeast. It felt like this bread combined the benefits of both methods.
Ready for the oven. (Not the best picture quality, but you get the idea.)
This recipe also forced me into trying baking bread in a cast iron pot. I saw this method mentioned on James Morton’s blog and was very curious to try it out. However, I remember the instructions of my cherished Le Creuset casserole clearly stating that it should not be exposed to heat without some sort of heat-absorbing medium (at least some frying oil) in the pot. The suggested method required preheating an empty cast iron pot in the oven, before sliding in your shaped loaf of bread and baking it (first, with the lid on to preserve moisture and then taking it off). Only after I had the dough proven and shaped and was approaching the baking stage did I realized the recipe called for the cast iron method. (Gotta stop skimming through the recipe instead of properly reading all the details before committing to bake!) And so I was left with the decision between altering the recipe or risking my casserole dish. Curiosity won and into the oven went my Le Creuset. I am glad to report it did survive. In order to be able to pinpoint the effect that this method of baking has, I should probably try the exactly same recipe on a baking tray and then compare the results. As I don’t have this point of reference, I can only state that I was happy with the overall result and will definitely make Pain de Campagne again.
The end result
Bread Lover's Adventure Log 