Basic Focaccia by Carol Field

I tried to make focaccia for the first time last month.  I did not calculate the time it would take first, so when I started in the early evening, I had no idea that I would still be waiting for the damn thing to rise when I was already sleepy. 


It turned out looking like this:

Gorgeous, right?  I could have used that slab o' yeast and flour to do serious damage to someone's car.  I'm not saying I did, I'm just saying I could have.  Ya know, if I wanted to...

Anyway, when I made it this time I had an expert baker with me to offer advice.  I owe my current focaccia success to Meg (a.k.a. Sugar Biscuits).

I used Carol Field's "Basic Focaccia" recipe from her book Focaccia: Simple Breads from the Italian Oven.  You can find some adaptations of her recipes online, like this: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/focaccia_bread_with_rosemary/ or pick up the book I used for yourself: http://www.amazon.com/Focaccia-Simple-Breads-Italian-Oven/dp/0811806049. 

For those of us who are not so comfortable in the kitchen:
Read the recipe and make sure you have not only all the ingredients, but all the right equipment.  I started out using the melamine bowls (the blue ones pictured on either side in the photo above), but realized two flaws with them.  First, plastic wrap does NOT like to stick to them.  So when you need to cover your dough tightly...well, let's just say that is not going to happen for you if you use melamine.  Second, you can't microwave melamine.  It doesn't matter for this recipe (and I don't own a microwave), but it still sucks.  Go out and get yourself some Pyrex at a garage sale or something.  I heart Pyrex.

Ahem.  I made the "sponge" for the focaccia without taking photos, since you do almost the same thing when you make the dough (which you add the sponge to).  So let's start with the yeast and a bit of warm water:

When you whisk the two together, the yeast may still settle on the bottom.  Don't worry, after you let it alone in the bowl for ten minutes, it will have come together.  Also, the temperature of the water should be decidedly warm without being hot.  My mom talked about temperatures as if I was supposed to understand what the heck she was talking about or pull out a thermometer, but I did neither.  And I still made focaccia.  And it still tasted good.  But you should listen to my mom.  (Lord knows, I'm not going to.)  She knows what she's talking about.  The rest of this story will be done with the help of lots of photos (thanks to Megan for taking them while my hands were covered in olive oil):

---

Adding the yeast mixture and olive oil to the sponge.

---

Which makes it look sort of soupy, but then you start bulking it up with some flour.

---

Then salt and some more flour, till you get...dough!

---

And this is where you get really excited because you've never made bread dough before, so you pose it and take photos.  Then you knead it till it feels like velvet...and take more photos.

---

Then you oil up a bowl, store the dough inside it, slap on some plastic wrap and introduce it to its new friends, in your refrigerator.
First rise (to double it) is about an hour and fifteen minutes.

---

And this is where you become very grateful that you have a friend around who is willing

---

to take pictures, although you wish you were photographing her hands instead.

---

Right, so here the focaccia has been stretched just a bit to try to fit the pan, but it's about to have some time to relax (covered with a towel, as you can see), which will allow it to expand a bit more.

---

Here we go, shaping it again.  And this time it's been pushed and prodded and finally fits.

---

Above left is the dough right before second rise.  It gets covered with the towel again and here Meg advised me to preheat the oven and put the focaccia on the stovetop.  Yeast loves warmth and, at this point, you want it to expand, filling with air bubbles.  I neglected to take a picture of the salting, oil drizzling and poking process, but you can see in the above right photo that it's been done.  I was very careful (this time, at least) to push holes into the dough without removing all the air bubbles, because you need both.  Unless you want to make a large inedible cracker.

---

It may not look very thick, but this 2nd try is about an inch thicker than the 1st one.  And it's a lovely golden brown.  This sucker can feed up to 12 people, but it goes stale fast since it doesn't have preservatives in it.  Bread storage bags can only do so much.  I am very happy with the results I got from this recipe, which means I'm ready to try the one I really want to be able to make: Focaccia al'Olio, the Genovese kind.

Yum.