Application Guide

COUNTRY BREADS
Country-style breads, also called European-style artisan or peasant breads, represent
the pinnacle of C breads to bakers. Made in the bread machine, they are a bit of an
anomaly. The entire premise of European-style country breads baked today is that they
embody the artisan creed, and this tells the customer a lot about the quality of the bread
and the style in which it has been made. Artisan bread baking employs old methods, so
it is usually created entirely by hand and baked in a wood-fired oven to give it a very
special character. Pain cuit au feu de bois, or bread baked in a wood-fired oven, has a
passionate following. It is the primary baking technique that says natural, authentic,
and traditional.
Many old world-style bakers stubbornly hold on to old methods, re-
garding the bread machine as a savage, interrupting the natural flow of the universal
laws of baking by removing the process from the warmth of their hands. But others
have modified their opinions to a more positive stance. Obviously the closed electric
oven chamber of a bread machine will never produce a loaf with the crust or familiar
long or round shape of a traditionally baked loaf, but baking country bread in the ma-
chine does have its attributes. Even when baking with a machine, you can still use a
baker’s care and feel, choosing fresh ingredients and using classic recipes. And there is
the entire spectrum of aromas and sensations associated with bread-making that remain
constant no matter what means you use. Any machine can make good country breads;
the newer ones with their state-of-the-art technology—developed, in part, with just
these breads in mind—produce especially good results.
Country breads, no matter the origin of any given recipe, are all
known for the same simplicity of raw ingredients that allows the flavor of the flour to
really dominate. When first-rate ingredients—organic flours, natural leaven and
yeasted starters, pure spring water, and unrefined sea salt—are used in making them,
the quality of these loaves really becomes apparent. These are, on the whole, simple
breads, whose characters can be changed by a slight variation in the proportion of flour
or how long a starter sits. Sugar and fat are virtually nonexistent in these breads, mak-
ing them favorites with people who are concerned about cholesterol and calories.
Many country breads use starters, or pre-ferments, for leavening. The
recipes that follow begin with breads that do not use starters. Later in this section,
when you come to the recipes that use starters, you will be using your machine to make
the starters as well as the doughs. The starters are made on the Dough cycle, then left
to sit in the machine for a specified number of hours. The new Welbilt machines have
a special setting just for starters, keeping the pre-ferments gently warm at an even 85°F
for up to twenty-four hours; I think more manufacturers will be adding this feature in
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