I decided to get over my fear of making bread. I thought focaccia would be a good one to try first, since the recipes looked relatively simple. The recipe I used was from a book, but this website has a really good one that gives a few different methods for making the dough.
Bread is an all-day sort of thing, and you can’t just decide to make it at 12 a.m. like I do with cookies sometimes. There’s a lot of time needed to let the dough rise, even though the actual dough making part is quite easy. It does make a huge mess, but pushing the dough around for a while is fun. Note the “for a while,” because after about seven minutes of kneading my arms decided I didn’t knead to knead (ha!) anymore. I have a new found respect for bread makers everywhere. I’d skip arms at the gym, if I was them.
When the dough had risen I kind of felt like a proud mother watching her first child graduate from college. I don’t know why bread rising would make me feel that way, but apparently it makes me emotional. You’re gonna be a focaccia soon! I tell it. It doesn’t respond.
For toppings I used rosemary, olive oil, and sea salt on one loaf and and Parmesan, olive oil, and oregano on the other. With focaccia you can add pretty much anything as toppings– onions, olives, herb and cheese, or even sweet ones like cinnamon and sugar.
I burnt my finger when I was pulling it out of the oven. Apparently baking with glasses is a hazard, because mine fogged up and I grabbed a part of the pan I wasn’t holding with a towel. I should probably invest in oven mitts when I decide to invest in a beater. I’m holding out on these new technologies.
I wasn’t sure if it was fully cooked when I took it out, because the top was a bit crispy, and I couldn’t tell if it had cooked through. I put it in for five minutes longer and it turned out fine. It did kind of just take like bread though. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I thought that the rosemary and olive oil would have seeped through more…and by more I mean I thought the whole thing would taste like herbs and it didn’t. I think maybe I had too much dough in one pan and that I should make it a little flatter next time. It tastes nice when dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil though.
Taking pictures while baking can get frustrating because you’ve got to wash your hands after each step, and my camera is like my child and must stay away from flour (that’s two inanimate objects I’ve referred to as my children in one post, I’m embarrassed). It took me a moment of trying to take a picture with one hand and dipping bread with the other to remember that I own a tripod for a reason. Use your resources, people.
Focaccia is excellent for when you need an entire day to procrastinate doing assignments, but still want to feel productive. Which is definitely not what I was doing today. Bread is important.
The Tasting Project 