Focaccia w/ Herb Oil (Mellow Bakers: August)

After seeing Abby's wonderful focaccia and reading her encouragement to make this, I decided to whip it up this weekend.  I decided to make up the full batch of biga from the ciabatta recipe on page 105, but I had planned on only using 2/3 of it for the final dough.  I figured 2/3 of the ciabatta recipe would be just enough to make both the regular focaccia and the focaccia con formaggio.  However, as quite often happens when I do things like this,  I goofed and put the whole biga in with the other ingredients when I was mixing up the final dough, instead of only 2/3 of it.  I didn't realize my error until all the fermentation was finished and I was ready to put my dough into the pan.  I was mad at myself for committing this blunder, and hoped that it didn't have an adverse impact on the finished product.  As Abby said, this dough was very wet and quite sticky.  I even tried oiling my hands really well, but it didn't seem to help much. 

I don't have a 10-inch cake pan so my focaccia ended up going into my 9 inch cake pan, and I just used an ounce less of dough.  Since I had my PR book, 'Bread Bakers Apprentice', open to his focaccia recipe, I decided to just go ahead and make the herb oil he describes, for mine as well.  I didn't have any other ideas and it won't be too long before cooler weather comes and the only way to get fresh herbs will be from the grocery stores.  I used a generous amount of fresh basil and rosemary.  I didn't have fresh oregano so I threw in dried.  I think I had about 2 heaping tablespoons full of herbs that I put into my 1/4 cup of warmed (to ~ 100°F) olive oil.  To the warmed oil I also added kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and a minced garlic clove.  Mmmm did it smell good. 

I put 2 Tbsp of plain olive oil into my cake pan, which I had lined w/ a piece of parchment.  I made sure the bottom and sides were nicely coated.  After reading Jeffrey's instructions for shaping and panning the focaccia, I thought 'Heck with that!!  I'm not shaping and then trying to move that very wet dough to the pan'.  So I did what Mr. Reinhart recommends, and that was to put the dough into my cake pan, smoosh it out a little bit, pour on a generous amount of my herb oil and then using my fingertips, to dimple the dough until it stretched out and just touched the sides of the pan.  I covered it for 1 1/2 hours for its final fermentation and then into the oven it went. 

As we were sitting down to dinner, hubby had already tried the focaccia before I had touched mine, and he says 'you better let me have yours, it tastes aweful'.  He said this with such a straight face, and is usually very honest w/ me, that I almost believed him (especially since I was worried that my biga blunder might have hurt the dough in some way).  Then I detected a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth and realized he was fibbing to me. 

This focaccia was absolutely awesome!!  This is our favorite focaccia by far, compared to the others I have made so far.  It is incredibly light, even compared to the others I've made.  Here are our first two slices, which we devoured, and then decided to finish off the whole thing, since it always tastes best straight from the oven the first day.

So, I have to ask, for those who have made the BBA focaccia and this one, is the BBA focaccia even better than this one?

Sun-dried Tomato, Asiago, Rosemary & Olive Oil Focaccia

I was trying to think of what I could make with local herbs and/or spices for the June Bread Baking Day, and for some reason, focaccia kept popping into my head.  However, maybe that's because I hadn't made a foccocia since last year and I have a large rosemary plant on my front porch just begging to be placed atop a tender focaccia.  I don't think rosemary is necessarily a local herb, but people here do love growing it and its especially popular here at Thanksgiving and Christmas on roasts and large birds. 

As I was contemplating the possibility of making focaccia, I realized the only focaccia I had made thus far was a bread machine recipe that I had made once.  I had never made focaccia from any other recipe.  This definitely needed remedied soon. 

Hubby and I had really loved the first focaccia I had made topped with rosemary, garlic, and kosher salt, but I wanted to top this one a little differently.  I love to peruse the breads in the bakery section of The Fresh Market, a gourmet grocery that has locations scattered all over the central and eastern part of the United States.  I don't ever buy their breads (way too expensive), but I get ideas on what I'd like to make at home.  I saw a basketful of focaccia last week and the variety that caught my attention was the sun-dried tomato, asiago, rosemary and olive oil one.  It looked soooooo good!  The perfect toppings.

The recipe for focaccia that I chose was from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.  The recipe looked interesting to me because of its list of ingredients, which included potato flour and nonfat dry milk, and because of the first step in its preparation.  I knew that the inclusion of potato flour and nonfat dry milk would definitely yield tender results. 

The first step listed in the preparation of this focaccia was to mix hot water and flour together and beat for several minutes to develop a smooth batter.  Hmmm, I'd never mixed boiling water and flour together before for a dough.  I wanted to give it a try.  When I did this, it didn't necessarily seem to me like a batter, but more like a paste:

It didn't look like much in the bowl, certainly not very appetizing.  I decided to cut the recipe in half so 1 cup of boiling water and 1 cup of flour didn't amount to much.  I added almost an 1/8 tsp of yeast to the batter (paste) and let it sit on the counter for 4 hours.  This was to develop flavor in the finished focaccia, as well as a soft interior texture.  After the four hours though,  it looked pretty much the same.  I had thought it would swell quite a bit, but it only got very slightly puffy.

Next, whisk potato flour with the remaining flour, dry milk, yeast, and salt.  I added this to the batter/paste, while beating it together and then put in 1 Tbsp of olive oil.  I beat this a little more by hand, which was hard, because it was so stiff and thick.  I put it into my stand mixer bowl and used the dough hook on medium speed for at least 10 minutes.  It seemed like I was adding alot of extra flour to the dough to get it to come together.  The directions didn't say what the finished dough consistency should be like, so I just had to hope I was doing this thing right.  Here's my dough after kneading and placing in a lightly greased bowl.

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise on the counter for 30 minutes.  The dough increased by about one third and looked puffy.  I then pulled the sides of the dough up and over in a folding motion (while keeping the dough in the bowl).  I did this several times to release some of the gas, and then I let the dough rise for another 30 minutes. 

I drizzled 1 tablespoon of olive oil into my 8 inch round pan and smeared it around a bit.  I placed the dough into the pan, gently stretching it to fit, covered, and let rest for 30 minutes.  Stretched it a little more to fit the pan and then preheated the oven to 400°. 

Just before sliding the focaccia into the oven, I dimpled it with my fingertips, brushed it with a little olive oil, and topped it with my sun-dried tomato, asiago, rosemary, and just a pinch of kosher salt.

I had meant to put some of the sun-dried tomatoes inside the dough, but I kind of forgot.  Into the 400° oven it went.  In only about 10 minutes, I could smell the melting asiago from the upstairs landing.  I could hardly wait for it to finish baking.  It took about 25 minutes before the focaccia was a nice deep, golden brown all over. 

I don't know if the folding of the dough was correct or if I dimpled it properly, but who cares after it comes out of the oven looking like this:

Ahhhhh, it smelled sooooo good.  I'm glad I had made a light dinner of 1 fish fillet (that we split) and rice, because we each had a quarter of this and we highly considered consuming the entire thing, it was that good.  Here's one of the quarters,

Tender Focaccia

from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion

yields two 8-inch round or one 12- to 14- inch round focaccia

2 cups (16 ounces) boiling water

3 3/4 cups (16 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces) potato flour, or 1/3 cup (3/4 ounce) potato flakes

1/4 cup (1 1/4 ounces) nonfat dry milk

2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus

2 to 3 tablespoons to grease the pan and the surface of the dough

Well, it wasn't very creative or elaborate, but it was what I decided to do for this month's bread baking day.  I will however, continue to try to experiment with my fresh herbs over the next few months in some more breads. 



If you'd like to participate in bread baking day   #41, hurry and get baking your bread with local herbs and/or spices and go to My Discovery of Bread, the host, to get the details of how to submit your bread.