Focaccia: Basic Dough For Flatbreads Or Loaves
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Italy
Known as an Italian recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.
Ingredients 13 ingredients
- 2 tsp. salt -- (2 to 3)
- Kosher or sea salt
- Cut
- 4 cups unbleached bread flour
- -- (I don't use)
- Oregano
- -- (85 to 95F)
- -- (I use KA's ap flour)
- Herbes de provence
- 2 tsp. olive oil -- (2 to 3)
- 2 tsp. active dry yeast
- 2 T chopped fresh rosemary -- (optional)
- 2 cups lukewarm water
Contains
Gluten
Read from the ingredients, not verified. Check labels.
Cook safely
Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.
- Oven and hot trays. Use dry oven gloves for trays and dishes: a hot tray looks just like a cold one. Open the oven door away from your face and let the first rush of heat out.
- Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.
Method
Chef Wood
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- To those people interested in my recipe for wet doughs: Here is the recipe, gleaned from Suzanne Dunaway's No Need to Knead, a highly recommended book.
- Measure the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until dissolved. Stir in 2 cups of the flour and the salt and stir briskly (with wooden spoon) until smooth, about 2 minutes. With a wooden spoon, stir in the remaining 2 cups of flour (plus or minus, depending on type of flour you are using) for about two minutes longer, just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and the flour is incorporated. The dough will be fairly wet and tacky (sticky), but when it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a loose ball, you'll know the dough has been stirred sufficiently. If it seems too sticky, stir in an additional 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour. (You will get to know how the dough should look from experience.......you will get good results, even with variations.)
- Same day method: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 30 to 40 minutes. Proceed with the shaping instructions.
- Overnight method (what I do): Cover the bowl (after dropping in a little oil and turning the dough with the scraper noted in my March 04 instructions) and refrigerate overnight. The dough will rise in the refrig and acquire flavor from the slower yeast action. Remove the dough 2 hours before shaping and let stand, covered in a warm place. The dough will rise for the second time. Proceed with the shaping instructions. (Comment: I have found from creating many a loaf that all doughs, sweets included, benefit from the refrig rise - they are far more cooperative for shaping. I keep in refrig sometimes for two days, but beyond that, the dough needs a bit more flour added to keep the yeast feeding on it.)
- Suzanne has many shaping methods, but I will only go into what I do:
- Remove dough from refrig. Leave out on counter for a couple of hours (more or less, not fussy). Then with the kidney-shaped flexible plastic scraper (noted in March 04 digest), hold bowl up, tilt sideways and scrape dough out onto a piece of parchment on a half-sheet baking sheet. It flows out like lava, ending up in a large spready oval. I then leave it out for a while until it seems ready (varies, short time to hours - it is forgiving - on the counter at room temperature); then dimple it with a floured finger, then sprinkled with a little olive, spread out with my fingers or a brush, then salted, then sprinkled with herbes de provence or oregano, or rosemary, or whatever you choose, then into a 500F oven, turned down to 450F as soon as you put it in). I put the half-sheet right on a baking stone on the bottom shelf of my gas-oven, bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven when light to medium browned - pick up with edges of parchment and plop down (still with parchment) on a rack to cool. It is tempting to try to cut while warm, but letting it cool completely is far better.
- I mostly use a sourdough starter, about a cup stirred into the 2 cups of lukewarm water after yeast has dissolved, but it is not necessary, just gives a different flavor, more complex. But I don't want to get into the starter method - this is a note for those who have a starter in their lives.
- From "walter johnstone"
Plating
Cookware for this recipe
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Baking tray
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Mixing bowl
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Chef's knife
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Cutting board
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Wooden spoon