24 April 2017

Pain de campagne

About 10 days ago, the woman who delivers bread four days a week to people in and around the village — she's called la porteuse de pain or "bread carrier" — let us know that the local bakery would be closed from April 18 to 25. Therefore, we'd have to make do without deliveries of baguettes for more than a week. Deliveries start up again tomorrow.


The first thing I did last Monday was to make a big loaf that would tide us over for a few days. Then the next time one of us went out in the car for any reason, we'd be able to stop in a boulangerie or even the supermarket and pick up some bread for the rest of the week.


I went down to the cellier (the cold pantry off the utility room) to check on our supply of flours. There I found a partially used bag of whole-grain rye flour and another of whole-grain wheat flour. Combined with some all-purpose flour, yeast, salt, and water, those would make a good loaf of the kind called pain de campagne — country-style bread — in France.


Here it is. I included one secret ingredient, which was about a tablespoon of American molasses that I brought back from the U.S. in February. Molasses is known as "black treacle" in the U.K. and other countries. I'm not sure you can find a French equivalent very easily. The big loaf I made baked up crusty on the outside and tender in the middle, with a nice crumb and a nice taste. It made good toast, and was good with cheese.

24 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. That first photo makes the bread look like it would make a good clog (sabot).

      I went to the supermarket this morning. I asked an employee to help me find mélasse (molasses, black treacle). He had no idea what I was talking about. And I couldn't find any in the store.

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    2. Bonjour Ken,

      I am surprised that they can't get it from the DOMTOM where sugarcane is grown

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    3. You would think so! But I think sugar beet mélasse has such a bad flavor that people in France would never think of buying or cooking with anything with a name resembling "molasses" — tant pis pour eux, as Julia Child would have said.

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  2. Maybe you could find it in northern France where they grow sugar beets and refine sugar.

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    Replies
    1. Molasses is made with cane sugar.

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    2. Wikipedia says: "Sugarcane molasses is agreeable in taste and aroma, and is primarily used for sweetening and flavoring foods in U.S., Canada and elsewhere, while sugar beet molasses is foul-smelling and unpalatable, so it is mainly used as an animal feed additive"...

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    3. I didn't know it either, but now I understand why people in France always wrinkled their noses when molasses or mélasse was mentioned. British black treacle is also a cane sugar product.

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    4. Wikipedia also says that light treacle a.k.a. Golden Syrup can be made either from sugar cane or sugar beets. Probably the refining is different from the sugar beet black treacle and there is no foul taste any longer.

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    5. On the bottle of molasses that I brought back from the U.S. I read: "Ingredients: molasses."

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    6. The label on the bottle of Lyle's Golden Syrup says "Ingredients: Partially inverted refiners syrup." Cane or beet, who knows? On the Lyle's Black Treacle can (tin) it says only: "Made from Cane Molasses..."

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  3. I guess we know what we can send you for Christmas :)

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    Replies
    1. Please, no need to send anything but season's greetings. : ^ )

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    2. lol, imagine, Christmas comes along, the postman starts complaining to you about all the packages coming from all over the world !

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  4. Have you posted the recipe (in English) in previous posts?

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    Replies
    1. Diane, see this post for some details about making French-style bread at home. There's a link in the text to a post about another loaf I made a week earlier.

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  5. That looks wonderful--and it probably perfumed the whole house while it was baking.

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  6. Mmmm that looks mouth-wateringly delicious.

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  7. That looks extra yummy to me! My dad liked sorghum molasses- so sweet it was tangy.

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