BBA Pain de Campagne ... 3/24/14
My wife asked me to bake a loaf of bread for some neighbors who recently had a new baby. She made meatballs.
It was sort of last-minute and I had just picked up some el-cheapo store brand AP flour (we haven't yet made our St. Patty's day soda bread and I was planning on using AP like I always do) so I took out some ripe starter (that I had refreshed after my last bake 2 weeks earlier) and decided to try a different recipe ... Reinhart's Pain de Campagne.
So I followed the recipe and really focused on obtaining a good windowpane since I was not using quality bread flour. Let ferment overnight in the fridge and baked the next morning. Baked at 550dF for 15 minutes with steam, then about 15 more minutes at 475dF.
Oven spring was pretty lame but I did get a bit of an ear which was a total shock. I didn't cut it since we were giving it away ... but our neighbor was just over giving us a thank you note and made a point of telling us that they all really enjoyed the bread. Nice!
Warm Regards-
Dave
Comments
I forgot to mention that the dough made with AP was much stickier than that made with BF. It also had a noticeably different texture ... hard to describe but noticeably and definitely different. No doubt has to do with the gluten...
-Dave
the water much better than AP.will so, the AP should be stickier but it will probably produce larger and more irregular holes. AP is the preferred flour for French baguettes at about 66 to 75% hydration depending on your wet dough handling skills and what kind of baguette you are trying to make. Getting big holes with bread flour is more difficult if you ask me.
This one looks good and bet it tasted great..