Focaccia is my favorite bread to make for many reasons. It has wonderful flavor, it’s east to make and people love it. In my days of fine dining I would make it to order for customers shortly after they sat in my dining room and serve it with nothing more than some wonderful Greek olive oil.
In essence it nothing more than pizza dough coated with infused oil and served as a flat bread. There are many applications for it such as making sandwiches, panini, dipping it in tsatziki, hummus, oil etc. making bruscetta and one of my favorites… Panzanella salad.
It will take about 20 minutes to start the dough, 2 hours to proof and 15 minutes to cook.
Start by measuring 4 cups unbleached high protein flour ( King Arthur is perfect for this)
Put 1 packet of dry active yeast in 1/2 cup warm water (it should feel like bathwater 110 to be specific and you want to tempo it) with a tablespoon of sugar
Start a bowl of Ice-water, you will need one cup with out the cubes
Add 1tbs. Kosher salt to the flour
1 tbs. olive oil
When the yeast has become foamy mix all the ingredients in the bowl
Transfer to the counter top and knead by hand for about 8 minutes or until smooth supple and elastic ( you can use one of those fancy dough mixers if you have one just be sure not to over knead the dough)
Transfer back to the bowl and rise for two hours at room temperature.
Punch down the dough and rise it until it doubles in size (about another hour)
Stretch out the dough in a baking sheet covering the top with herb infused oil and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt
bake at 425 for about 15 minutes
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