Focaccia

Behold- the encyclopedia which I borrowed and have not read. Another unaccomplished fall break assignment... well, to some extent. Seeing as I have been unable these past few days to wake up at an early enough hour to start my dough, I tried a recipe from this book. It turned out pretty good! I guess because focaccia is basically all about the quality of olive oil used...

But, even if you don't have to start it the night before, a sponge is NECESSARY. This basic sponge is really what bread is all about... yeast, flour and water and absolutely nothing else. You leave it to rise until it collapses upon itself...

Look, it ate up my mixing spoon :(

Then you add in the rest of the flour (the bulk of it), along with sugar, lots of olive oil, salt, water... and mix it all up and knead it until smooth. Which took forever and forever and about 6 additional tablespoons of flour. Then you are supposed to let it rise, knock it back, let it rise, in this endless tug of wall. Eventually you are permitted to let it slide into a well-greased pan and gently stretch it to fill the pan. You poke little holes on the surface and smear herbed oil all over, like wells of greasy gold on a perfect taut surface. Then after the final rise, bake it at a sizzling 375F for 30 minutes or until the center reaches 200F. Put the remaining herb oil on a final wash over the top surface of the focaccia, and tip it out of the pan to cool. Serve when warm.

Not an open crumb, however. But it was a tender product and it rose pretty scarily because of the oil in the dough. Mm... I used sel gris along w the herbed oil (which had fennel, parsley and roasted garlic). Sel gris is AWESOME. I don't regret my purchase of it at all last year. It's slowly but surely finishing, but I love the

 intense flavor of the salt.

And so ends my fall break! It's back to school work now. Adieu~