Feb 28, 20217 min read

The Italian Garden | The Focaccia Bread~scape

Updated: Jul 29, 2023

"Breads" might be just my thing! I finally have a thing!! Yay! So happy!

Seriously, the joy you get from baking bread is undeniably the best feeling in this world. The exquisite and delicious results of your hard work, patience, and creativity, are extremely fulfilling and gratifying. I always thought I'll be terrible at bread baking since it requires a lot of composure and patience and I'm pretty bad at handling both of those emotions. Nonetheless, I don't know from where I get so much calmness in me, whenever I start the whole process of making bread. I guess I am too scared of it and thinking that if I lose my focus, I'll ruin the recipe might be actually helping.

Although now I know, what technique works the best for me. The first thing, that I do before jumping on making bread is "research". I read tons and tons of recipes online (here I heavily relied on chef Joshua Weissman's solid recipe!! He's amazing! Check out his YouTube channel), So then after reading and watching videos I write down a few notes and then compare them, and take the best points out of all of them. At the same time, I think about the ingredients too, for e.g., what flour to use or what kind of oil to use, or what dairy products to use. That too requires a lot of searching over the internet and reading some articles and learning about different kinds of ingredients and their composition, and how they react with each other. Oh Yes! Baking is a science. These two processes, really assist me in maintaining my coolness and thus makes the whole task of bread making, all the more enjoyable.

The place where most of us falter is the measurement. The measurements of the base ingredients have to be accurate. Don't cut the corners on that. Several great chefs, have repeatedly mentioned that for baking, measurements have to be in grams and milliliters, because, if you measure with a cup or a tsp, you end up packing a lot more than what is actually required, thus leading to inadequate results. Therefore investing in a good kitchen scale really helps with baking. I use Ozeri ZK14-S Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale.

Now coming back to the Focaccia. So focaccia is essentially like a dipping bread. Since it's so soft and fluffy, it just absorbs the oil or soup or gravy in which you dip it in. It's supposed to be very bland, and thus, soaking it in salty soups really makes a scrumptious meal. I'm guessing, that this bread used to a poor man's bread in the olden times, but now, just like everything else, this has become a delicacy. People now experiment a lot with the toppings and the flavors and use rosemary, sage, garlic, cheese, and onions, to name a few. I also came across several sweet focaccias topped with honey, raisins, sugar, and lemon peel, among others.

I made a savory one, although I was a bit skeptical about topping it with any kind of vegetable, then I thought why not! And then one thing lead to another and made a landscape with flowers and butterflies and a dandelion puff and what not!

Olive oil is obviously a very integral part of this recipe. I have used three different kinds of olive oil, all three at different stages.

The olive oil that went in my dough - Toscano Extra Virgin Olive Oil (from Kirkland)

The olive oil that I used for drizzling on the pans - A store-bought, Bionature's Organic extra virgin olive oil

And finally, the olive oil I used to drizzle on top of the focaccia, right at the end, which had to be of an excellent kind - Fiore Mushroom and Sage flavored Olive oil

Read about Fiore Mushroom and Sage flavored Olive oil here. We got it from Bar Harbor, Maine. It was just an amazing coincidence that we had been simply strolling around in the Bar Harbor downtown area, and we stumbled upon this cute little store, that has some of the unique tasting olive oils and vinegar. They also sell some delicious homemade pesto and a wide variety of olives, that are stuffed with garlic, pickles, and chilies, to name a few. They add flavors to their olive oils and vinegar which to me, was a fascinating thing.

Ok now, let's get started.

Step 1 : Gather your ingredients

Bread Flour - 825 gm
Whole Wheat Flour - 150 gm
Instant Yeast - 7 gm
Fine Sea Salt - 20 gm
Extra virgin olive oil - 30 gm (I'm using Toscano Extra Virgin Olive Oil )
Water - 830 gm at 100 F

We'll discuss the ingredients for the toppings in a minute

Step 2 : Make sure that the temperature of your water is at 100 F, and once it's there add in the yeast to the water. Mix it thoroughly. Now the yeast might not bubble too much, as the water content is a lot. However a hazy and velvety mix will be formed in 10 - 15 minutes, which would smell like beer, and that should be good. I transferred my mixture to a glass bowl, to look at what's happening with it.

Step 3 : While the water and yeast mix is resting, take a container that's 9 x 13 inches in measurement (if it has a lid too, then that's great), otherwise we will cover it with plastic wrap. In that container, spray some vegetable oil, and drizzle some olive oil, and spread it nicely using a brush or a paper towel. Also, oil the lid.

Take a cling film if you don't have a lid like me, and oil it as well.

Step 4 : Now once the 10 minutes are over, take a large mixing bowl, and add in the bread flour and whole wheat flour, and mix both using a whisk.

Step 4 : Put the bowl in the standing mixer, and start the mixer on low speed. Then slowly add in the entire water - yeast mix, and let it mix for 10 minutes.

Step 5 : After 10 minutes, you might have to scrape down the bowl. Then add in the salt and let it mix on medium-low speed for another 10 minutes.

Step 6 : You might have to stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl, to make sure all the dough is incorporated. Then add the olive oil, and mix for 3 minutes, until the entire oil is completely mixed.

Step 7 : In the end, the dough will look like this. It will be very wet and sticky, but don't worry that's how it should be.

Step 8 : Take out the dough on a clean, un-floured surface.

Step 9 : Now comes, the most tricky and somewhat difficult part of the recipe. The slapping and folding. It will be difficult since the dough would be very sticky. However, keep going! It will start to come together. So you pick the dough up, slap it, and then fold the dough over itself. When you pick the dough again, you pick it up from the folded sides. See this video. It should help! Do this for 3 minutes, the dough will start to come together by the end of it.

Step 10 : Now transfer the dough to the oiled container

Step 11 : Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 48 - 72 hours.

Step 12 : So now, after 72 hours or 3 days, we are here again! Now get a baking sheet that's also 9x13 inches and make sure you have an extra baking sheet of the same dimension since you'll need it to cover this sheet. You'll see in a minute what I mean.

Step 13 : Take out the dough from the fridge and look at it. It has been silently working and rising!! Yes, this is a step!! Look at it!! Admire it!

Step 14 : Now very very carefully transfer the dough onto your prepared baking sheet. Be careful while transferring, we don't want to knock off the gas and bubbles built in it.

It looks like an alien or like a deformed animal. Wow!

Step 15 : Gently spread this dough on the sheet, so that it's evenly spread and the ends of the dough are somewhat reaching or meeting the corners of the sheet. I was too scared to do this step, as I was worried I might stretch the dough too much, but a little bit of stretching is fine and also necessary since only then the dough can spread evenly and therefore bake evenly.

Step 16 : Now cover this sheet with the extra baking sheet, and wrap this whole setup nicely with plastic wrap! and let it proof at room temperature for 2 - 3 hours!

Step 17 : An hour before you want to bake this, start prepping the toppings. Since I was planning this/doing this on the go, therefore my results slightly missed the mark. I could have done better maybe? I don't know!

You can also completely skip the toppings and just season with some nice flavored or non-flavored salt and really good olive oil and that's it.

I, however, went a little crazy with the toppings and created a garden on this bread.

A tip here, not a pro tip, just a tip, that don't crowd the bread, as vegetables will release moisture/water and hence they can make the top layer (where they are put) soggy!

Anyway, so I took out my vegetables, and came up with these designs!! And also start your oven now, and set it to as high as it can go, 500 - 550 F. If you have a fan oven like mine, then 450 - 500 F is fine.

Step 18 : Now then, after 3 hours, I was excited to do that one step!! finally that step!! the dimpling!!

Uncover the dough and if there aren't any bubbles, then with WET hands, dimple the dough, and you'll see bubbles rising.

Step 19 : Now sprinkle some nice salt flakes on the focaccia, and then drizzle, heavily, a very nice olive oil.

I used the Fiore Olive oil, flavored with Mushroom and Sage, which I had bought from this exquisite shop in Bar Harbor, called Fiore Artisan Olive oils and Vinegars.