pain de campagne

Although each bakery has its own recipe, pain de campagne is reminiscent of the bread people baked in the village oven that would last a few days or longer. It’s generally made with a combination of white flour with whole wheat flour and/or rye flour, water, yeast and salt. It’s the use of rye, which grew wild amongst the wheat, that gives pain de campagne its taste.

Sometimes known as ‘French sourdough’, although in recent decades its sourdough position has been taken over by pain au levain, which is a true sourdough using levain a proper sourdough starter.