Focaccia, maybe.

It's been awhile since I've posted here. (Been doing the Facebook crap because that's where I thought I needed to be. How wrong can one get?) I need to focus on what's important to me and FB is mostly distraction, and egos almost as bad as my own. So it's back to the blog and BREAD!

This attempt at bread building is out of Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". I've been building poolish versions of Ciabatta for the Mad Bulgarian who is usually furious with me for deviating from the leanest of recipes! Focaccia, made with a poolish, allows me to add whatever I like, even to the point of turning the bread into a pizza! I'm also leaving small amounts of poolish in the bowl as I begin each bread. I rebuild the poolish from the leavings, not that I'm worried about the cost of yeast, I'm trying to establish the habit of baking from restarted poolish so I can invest in a packet of French bread starter yeast and bacteria. THAT stuff is expensive so starting a new bread from the leavings of past starters makes sense, provided I get into the habit of baking often enough to justify buying the first packet of starter.

So Focaccia. (I weigh the flour and spoon or cup measure most everything else.)
Poolish:
11.25 ounces of all-purpose flour
1.5 cups of room temp water
1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast

I mix them with a dough whip, though a large spoon would serve. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave to ferment at room temps for about 3 hours. Then chill overnight, or up to 3 days before using. Before using set out to warm for about an hour.

Focaccia dough:
all the poolish
2 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of instant yeast
6 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cups of water (room temp)
I use a mixer, beating everything together, then letting it rest 30 minutes before mixing at medium speed for 7 minutes. The dough should pull free from the sides of the mixer, but be attached to the bottom of the bowl. Add a bit of flour if it seems too much like a batter. Heavily flour a counter top and scrape the dough onto it.

Dust the dough with flour and pat into a rectangle. Let it rest 5 minutes then pull one side out and fold over the top. Stretch the opposite side out and fold over the first. Spray with cooking oil, dust with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap. let be for 30 minutes then repeat the stretching and folding. Spray with oil and dust again. Recover for 30 minutes then repeat once more. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit a 17' x 12' pan. Coat with olive oil and gently spread the dough on the paper. This is what you end up with:

While the dough was resting I added onion, garlic, black pepper and oregano to some olive oil and heated it for 30 seconds in the microwave. As the dough relaxed I poured the herbs and oil all over the dough as I spread it out to fill the pan. A final sprinkle of shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, sea salt and some cracked pepper and into the 500F oven it went. The heat was turned back to 450F. 10 minutes then I rotated the pan 180 degrees for another 5 minutes.

And here it is after 15 minutes in a 450F oven, on the middle rack.

Look at the big holes. They should be all through it, but I'm please with this first attempt.

If the bread has a fair flavor I'm likely to add pizza sauce the next try. ;-)