Focaccia bread Dearn style

Last week I attempted for the first time to cook Focaccia bread. Normally I use a bread machine for my bread but use my own flour and yeast mixtures which are much superior to shop bought. I do like the bread machine as it saves me having to work the dough by hand but for my Focaccia I was wanting to do it the old fashioned way and bring Italy to Falkirk sipping wine and swearing in a foreign language as I baked. Making the dough for Focaccia is very much like the process making dough for Pizza (will one day blog my walnut and gorgonzola recipe) except you don’t use as much yeast. First I place the flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and 300ml of the water into a large bowl. Gently stirring with a wooden spoon to form dough then knead the dough in the bowl for five minutes, gradually adding the remaining water also adding about 3 table spoons of the very best cold pressed olive oil. I constantly dust my hands with flour so the dough does not stick to them. Also note that I use strong white flour for most if not all of my baking, a tip I heard at a Paul Hollywood road show in Edinburgh a couple of years ago. I use 2 sachets dried yeast which I pick up in Morrisons. Be aware also that I use flour which is high gluten, I don’t think this would work otherwise so if you are intolerant then perhaps not for you. In Italy they sometime add lard to the mix giving the focaccia a softer, slightly flakier texture. One the dough is in a good condition I flatten out on a shallow backing tray (which has sides) then press holes in the dough at regular intervals and put some fresh Rosemary in the holes and a drip of olive oil. I prefer Morrisons for the Rosemary as it’s fresh and comes in a bunch.

I leave the dough to raise for about 40 minutes after which its almost doubled its size then I press some salt into the dough, I always use sea salt, pure Anglesey sea salt from Tesco finest range is really good, thick crunchy flakes. The I drizzle the dough with a good amount of olive oil before playing in a preheated oven 220C (gas mark 7) for 20Minutes, but keep an eye on it.

A conventional loaf of bread is too tall to absorb olive oil all the way through to its center. Being shorter in height than a conventional loaf and less dense than a pizza dough, focaccia can indeed absorb olive oil all the way to its center or at least nearly so. As such, focaccia might well be thought of as "olive oil bread". As you can see from my pictures the top of the bread is slight burn but this was cosmetic only as inside it was soft and delicious , I was really pleased how it turned out. Next time I intend melting some cheese and adding black olives to the top. I served this bread with hummus (home made by me again) and it was lovely.