Focaccia

We were having pasta with Bolognese sauce tonight, so I decided to try making focaccia to go with it. I followed the recipe for focaccia from 'Apples for Jam' which uses normal plain flour instead of bread flour, and I wasn't quite sure how it would work out, but decided to go with it.

Making the focaccia was very similar to making normal bread, with slight variations. The yeast frothed up more to start with, and the dough was much stickier so had to be kneaded (or squished around) in the bowl. It puffed up a lot after being left to rise, and then had to be spread gently into a pan before being proved. Then after making dents in the surface, I brushed it with a salt/oil/hot water mix before cooking it.

It was really lovely bread, and went well with the Bolognese - especially when topped with some butter, garlic and herbs!

Easy to make, although a little more time-comsuming to make than a normal loaf. It had a crispness to it which I assume would be lost slightly if bread flour was used, and the amount of ingredients made a large slab (about 25 x 35 cm) - about twice as much as the 5 of us needed for our meal.

Ingredients:
435 ml warm water
20 g fresh yeast (or 10 g dried)
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
600 g plain flour