Help with Focaccia Crust
Hello all,
For a while now I have been struggling with making focaccia. Specifically, I cannot seem to get a good bottom crust on my focaccia. The top of the focaccia is nice and brown and gorgeous-looking, and when I take it out of the oven, the bottom crust is completely pale -- cooked, to be sure, but white and not crispy.
I bake in an electric oven, with the rack a little below the middle of the oven (the oven has five rack levels, I use the second from the bottom).A baking stone lives in my oven; I make sure to preheat the oven to 500F for a good 45 minutes before baking. (Last time, I even used an infra-red thermometer to make sure the stone is warm enough). I bake at 450F, with the top and bottom heating elements on, without convection. I bake the focaccia in a pan, set directly on the stone. I use plenty of olive oil in the pan. I usually put parchment on the pan, although I have tried it once without parchment to no different effect.
My recent attempts have been with four different recipes: PR's focaccia from TBBA, Jim Lahey's from "My Bread", Craig Kominiak's (from the "Baking with Julia" book), and Richard Bertinet's from "Dough". All have yielded fantastic-tasting focaccia, but I so long for that bottom crust.
I would really appreciate some help from people who manage to great these great, crispy, golden-brown bottom crusts without overbaking the focaccia or burning the top.
Thanks!
Boaz