Pain de Campagne

I chose to make this bread - another recipe from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - because of the many possibilities for shaping. There are instructions to form many traditional shapes in the book, but here I have attempted the Tabatière, or "pouch:"
They don't look exactly like the photographs in my cookbook, but they tasted pretty good, so I'll take it.

This bread began with a fermented sponge. This is just flour, water and yeast mixed together that rises a bit, then is chilled overnight. It brings out the flavor of the wheat:


In the morning, the fermented starter is chopped into pieces and brought to room temperature before you add more flour (rye and bread flours), yeast, salt and water:

After the dough has been kneaded and risen, the real fun begins. To shape a pouch, you form your dough into a boule, then flatten half of it with a rolling pin:

You then brush or spray a little bit of oil of the non-flattened part of your boule and fold over the flap. It is then placed on your baking sheet to rise and from there is headed straight into a five hundred degree oven!