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Easy focaccia bread for vAe
Made this bread today.
vA values very low (but not zero).
Omitted the "toppings": no herbs, no tomatoes or garlic, etc.
Only topping was coarse sea salt.
Plenty tasty that way.
Ate with home-made beef broth with chunks of beef in the soup.
A hearty and satisfying combination.
This recipe is "under development" here, so I welcome comments and critique.
Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/4 cup olive oil (plus extra for greasing and drizzling)
Sea salt (for sprinkling)
Instructions here:
And many videos on Youtube.
Uploaded files:
Notes on the focaccia recipe above:
So easy: only 1 bowl.
No kneading, and no mess of flour in the kitchen.
After mixing ingredients in one bowl, I just put my (clean) hand in and "massage" the dough for a couple of minutes.
I no longer depend on baking times in recipes.
Much more dependable to use a "probe" thermometer to measure internal temperature.
Always turns out cooked just right.
In this recipe, internal temperature is 200º F.
No less and no more.
Olive oil can be chancy.
I've read that most low price olive oils are diluted with common seed oils (PUFA oils).
My solution to that problem is to buy "vintage" or "estate" olive oil.
Yup, expensive.
In the oven, I put a large pan with water right underneath the bread.
Steam from that helps the bread stay moist and soft while baking.
Sprinkle salt on top before baking, not after.
Salt gets a nice toasted flavor.
Only use coarse salt (Kosher-style salt); not table salt.
Final note is to use lots and lots of olive oil.
And then a bit more olive oil.
Makes a big difference in taste and texture.
After baking and letting cool to eating temperature dip into balsamic vinegar with olive oil.
Uploaded files:
For a good while I was doing a so-called no-knead bread, and letting it autolate in the fridge for several days seemed to give it nice flavors. What you do is you make the next dough when you take out the one you are going to bake, sort of habit. In fact, you don't really have to ever clean the bowl. You could try a habit like this with your recipe to add flavor without adding VA. However, it might have more "amines", which could possibly go down the same pathways as VA, as alcohol does and other things.