Pain de Campagne

A Bread of Substance

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Pain de Campagne can be described as a bread with a rustic charm, whose origins can be traced to sylvan France of centuries ago. Pain de Campagne means country bread in French, is a traditional Sourdough bread, made with a mix of refined flour, whole grain wheat and rye flour. This bread has been gaining back popularity in the market in the recent times, due to its unique flavour and also because of the fact that there is a growing wave of health consciousness permeating through the consumer preferences of the Indian food & beverage industry.

The French Legacy

The origins of Pain de Campagne dates back hundreds of years ago when flour from stone mills was used to make breads in the countryside of France. During ancient times, people from the French countryside brought Pain de Campagne dough into urban towns on days named as baking days. The bread loaves would be placed in large, community ovens and then redistributed to all the participating families.

Then the Pain de Campagne loaves were quite large in size, weighing almost up to five kilograms, and could last a family a week or more and hence they were also known as family loaves. The availability of different ingredients in different regions of the French countryside led to many discoveries on this basic type of bread, by adding rye, wheat or other grains and also by using a variety of yeast. Most traditional French recipes of this bread are products of a combination of white flour and whole wheat flour, and/ or rye flour, water, yeast and salt.