Going Focaccia Crazy
I have a pizza oven and baked very underwhelming bread twice during the pandemic, but I’ve found it difficult to fall into a proper rabbit hole when it comes to dough-making. Focaccia might do it for me.
My daughter and I had been wanting to experiment with focaccia (and schiacciata) and so I suggested we make this Bon Appetit recipe that Alana recommended in this recent KDO recipe thread — it’s tough to resist “I am mildly famous for this focaccia. It’s bread for lazy people who love hot bread.” It’s me. I am lazy. I love hot bread.
We made it yesterday and it came out well: very delicious right out of the oven. And it was really the first time I’ve made dough where I’ve been like, “oh, I finally get why people say pizza/bread dough is a living thing”. Today we made sandwiches (mortadella, prosciutto, burrata, arugula) and they were quite good — but the focaccia crumb was pretty dense. Which sent me on a little bit of a research expedition, during which I found this video on YouTube:
Wow! Check out all those bubbles…ours didn’t look anything like that. I actually squealed when she pressed down on the bread and it sprung right back — that focaccia might be able to replace my car’s suspension. This recipe results in a more hydrated dough than the BonApp recipe does. And you work it more and it has different flour (00 instead of all-purpose). And the process looks only a little bit less lazy…manageable for me, I think. Looking forward to trying this out next!
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I'm on my phone right now so it's hard for me to find links but look up Samin Nosrat's ligurian focaccia. I know it's on her website. It's an overnight recipe and it is maybe the best focaccia I've ever made. If you find her salt fat acid heat series, I think on Netflix she makes it in the first episode.
Yes! I was just talking about my amazement at how much olive oil she uses when making that recipe in her special.
Hi Jason, long-time reader, first-time commenter. I recently discovered the Bread in 5 method by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, and it has quickly become a regular part of our household's diet. Easy to pick up, excellent quality, and I've found that with a few modifications (more flour, add a little bit of sugar, split the dough into two at the first pass), one can really make first-rate homemade bread. We keep a loaf of factory bread in the freezer for backups, but once you get into a routine with this, it's hard to go back. Love your work, keep it up.
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