Olive herb focaccia

My friend gave me the Bread Bible for Christmas. It's great! It has 300 recipes and I have yet to try them all. I got my pizza dough recipe from this book as well but today I want to talk about focaccia. Focaccia, however is related to pizza dough. I'm just starting out on bread baking so I decided I was going to start with an easier but very tasty bread. This recipe is great because it doesn't involve any kneading. The rising time is about an hour and 15 minutes but that's not too bad considering other breads that can take 2-3 hours and need to be kneaded in between.

I know that most people would rather buy their bread for 3-4 dollars but once you've baked bread yourself, you'll wish you could eat it everyday! Realistically, who has time to bake fresh bread everyday? BUT I want to put out there that it's not as hard as most people think and hopefully you can add it to your repertoire for weekend meals or special occasions. If you're a sandwich lover like me, it'll make your sandwiches go from mmmm to WOW!

Ok...nuff trying to convince you cuz if you're not already convinced to try it, you probably stopped reading.

Although I got the recipe from the Bread Bible, I altered it a little because I didn't have the exact ingredients on hand and I wanted it to fit my taste.

The original recipe is for olive focaccia but I had some fresh rosemary and thyme so I made it an olive herb focaccia.

Ingredients:

Amount	Ingredient
1 Tbsp	Active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups	Flour*
1 1/4 tsp	Salt
1 cup	Hot milk (120 degrees)
1 cup	Hot water (120 degrees)
1/4 cup	Olive oil
1/2 cup	Kalamata olives halved**
	Olive oiling bowl
1 1/2 Tbsp	Chopped fresh rosemary
1 1/2 Tbsp	Chopped fresh thyme

*This should be exact. No messing around.
**The original recipe calls for 1 cup of canned black olives but I didn't have these and I prefer Kalamata olives.

Topping for the focaccia:
1/2 cup of finely graded Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons of freshly chopped thyme
1/8 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper
4 tablespoons of olive oil

By the way, ignore the weird table format. I'm practicing my html.

1) In a large bowl combine 2 cups of the flour, yeast, and the salt. Add the hot water, hot milk and the olive oil. You can use a whisk or a heavy-duty electric mixer if you have one. Beat the mixture until well combined about 2 minutes. Mix in the chopped olives and herbs. Switch to a wooden spoon and add the remaining flour, 1/2 a cup at a time until a soft dough that just clears the sides of the bowl is formed. The dough will be sticky soft and oily. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, drizzle the sides of the bowl with more olive oil and cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature until the dough doubles in size, about one hour.

Before rising:


After rising:


2) Oil a 17 x 11 inch baking sheet. (Your average cookie sheet is this size) Transfer the dough onto the baking sheet and spread the dough apart gently across the entire baking sheet. Smear the top with the topping as evenly as you can. Sprinkle course sea salt if you have some but it's not necessary. Let it rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.


3) Make sure the oven is preheated at 450 degrees for 20 minutes before putting the bread into the oven. If you have a pizza stone place that on the bottom rack of the oven. Place the pan directly onto the stone for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to bake until golden brown for about 20 minutes. Let the bread cool in the pan for 5 minutes and remove it with two spatulas since it will be quite large. Cool on cooling racks.



Here's a picture of the sandwich that I had for lunch.
It was deeeeelicious!