Foccacia

Over this past weekend I got an urge to do a bit of bread baking.  It's something that I hadn't done in a few years and so I thought, why not?  One of my most favorite breads is foccacia, and so that's what I was going to make.  Around the same time that I got the starter working the facebook posting went up on the page about memorable bread services, what a coincidence!  The beauty of this little bread baking test is that I was able to both stifle my bread baking urge (or at least scratch the itch) and also feed our entire staff on Saturday afternoon and that's always a plus.  I kept it simple and tasty, or as my Pastry Chef (chef Higgins) in culinary school a whole bunch of years back used to say "friggin' delicious".  Check out what we ended up with.....

a good foccacia begins a day before any rising or baking will happen.  The first task is to mix the starter (flour, water, yeast and sugar) and allow that to "ferment" for 24 hours

The next morning I've got to "feed" the starter.  The starter is fed cornmeal, bread flour, olive oil, salt & sugar.  This re-energizes the yeast and kicks things into overdrive

Once the starter has been fed (the flours, oil, salt and sugar added to/mixed into the starter) the entire dough is placed into a storage container and covered.  The dough is kept in a warm area (about 80 degrees is optimal), I kept it above our convection oven in the kitchen

After 2 hours you can see the dough has risen to double it's original volume

Once the dough had doubled I "knocked it back", a term used in baking that essentially means knocking all the gasses (from the rising) out of the dough or punching it back down to size in layman's terms.  At this point the dough was portioned out and balled.  These dough balls then were left to rest for 30 minutes

After the half hour rest the individual doughs were pressed/stretched out into oiled and cornmeal-dusted half sheet pans and again allowed to rest for another 30 minutes

During this final resting period the toppers/garnishes were readied.  The day prior (after preparing the starter) I had caramelized some onions and also oven roasted some tomatoes (seen on the sheet pans).

Once the half hour resting period was up the dough is dimpled (you press your fingers into the dough to form divots) and oiled with olive oil

Next I laid the oven roasted tomatoes onto the foccacia, but I left some without for those who don't appreciate tomatoes (weirdos)

Some chopped rosemary, crushed red pepper flakes and grey salt (or sel gris) was then sprinkled over the dough

Lastly I spread a bunch of caramelized onions over the foccacia and then it was off to the ovens at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes

Gorgeous golden brown foccacia fresh out of the oven, the aroma was irresistible!

Check out that beautiful "tunneling", this is from the gases created by the yeast, it's a sign of a great foccacia

That was it really, just an exercise in bread baking that helped ease my soul while also helping to feed the J. Gilbert's family before a busy Saturday night.