August 8, 2010 - 8:38am
Focaccia Recipe from Cook's Illustrated
The new Cook's just arrived and has an article on focaccia. It is basically an unkneaded version that starts with a biga and just uses three foldings to get the proper texture. I tried it last night and while I used a cup of ripe sourdough starter instead of the biga it turned out very nice. An easy recipe though it produces a very wet dough (about 85% hyrdration) that might scare a new baker it is doable by an inexperienced baker. Here is the link to the online article on Better Focaccia
Too bad... have to be a member to get their recipe.... been looking for a great foccaicia recipe for some time now... thank you though...
Happy baking!
Take a look at Food Network site. It has 95 focaccia recipies
http://www.foodnetwork.com/
I didn't have any problem following the link in the post and viewing the recipe. It didn't log me in or anything like that. Did you follow the link in the post?
Sorry, I have subscription but I didn't log on to look at the recipe. I'll check again.
prepared by a professional so I'm not really sure how authentic this recipe is. I've made it several times for my family and they really like it.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Focaccia_Bread
Focaccia is a type of flat bread popular in Italy, but probably adopted from Greece. The basic bread is often topped with any of the following: herbs, olive oil, cheese, meats, and vegetables, and can be seen as a precursor to pizza. Makes 1 loaf.
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=25881
the recipe is hidden but the video is in the clear
ingredients for biga:
stir together in glass bowl, cover, and let sit for 8 to 24 hours at "room temp"
Preheat oven to 500F
ingredients for the rest of the dough (added to the biga above):
stir together. (not using a mixer)
let sit 15 mins
add 2 tsp kosher salt - I would never use kosher salt IN a dough, use regular salt. Kosher salt is designed NOT to dissolve. It's really a no-go for use in a dough. Let "rise" 30 mins.
do 3 times total:
gently remove from bowl onto floured surface and divide in half
gently form balls (not deflating)
Oil cake pans with olive oil (I question if this would work in other than the nonstick pans they're using in the video; I do NOT find olive oil useful to keep dough from sticking, quite the opposite in fact)
sprinkle some kosher salt (about 1 tsp per pan) in the bottom of the pans. Using kosher here would be OK since this is not incorporated into the dough, it ends up being a "topical" application, where the disinclination of the kosher salt to dissolve might actually be a plus.
Place the dough in the pans gently and coat with the oil, flip to coat the other side, being careful not to deflate.
Cover and let rise another 5 mins
form into the pan; let sit another 5 mins if it isn't stretching easily
poke any big bubbles with a fork
sprinkle with rosemary
turn oven down to 450F and bake on stone in (metal) cake pans for 25-28 mins
remove from the pans and let cool on a wire rack.
Personally I have not found a subscription to CI to be worth the money.
I think the Reinhart recipe from Artisan Bread Every Day is easier, quicker (in prep time); and gives you more options for holding to bake later (and more opportunity to develop flavor).
But in the end, whatever works for you is what you go with.