Baking Rose's Breads: Rosemary Focaccia Sheet

     
        Christmas has come and gone and I’m diving into a cookbook I received as a gift: The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Bernabaum with another friend, Laurie, who I met through the original Tuesdays with Dorie baking group back in 2008 and have baked with over the years. I already have Rose’s books The Cake Bible (a gift from my baking buddy Margaret) and The Pie Bible. I love how detailed her recipes are with the processes (she even gives the speed at which to set the Kitchen Aid Mixer when mixing) and measurements (she gives volume, ounces, and grams for the recipes). We are keeping it loose…not really advertising it a lot, although anyone who wants to join in can just do so at any time, no commitment necessary.  We decided to call our little group Baking Rose’s Breads as that’s really all we are doing, baking our way through this particular book, I decided to put mine on my blog so I can look back and remember what I’ve made along the way.  Our first recipe, Rosemary Focaccia Sheet (pages 205-208), we actually made together last Friday just chatting through the process and sharing photos and tips along the way, she in her kitchen in Pennsylvania and me in my kitchen in Indiana.  It was a fun day and while we might not be able to time the bakes so we can do it together, we are making the same recipe each time. 

       Ingredients: all purpose flour, instant yeast, water, sugar, salt, extra virgin olive oil, dried rosemary, and fluer de sel. (I decided to also use pizza seasoning on the top of the Focaccia.)

       We both enjoyed watching the very soupy dough come together into a ball while mixing in the mixer and then becoming like melted mozzarella pouring it into the rising container…as Laurie said, “It’s a miracle!” Fascinating.  It took longer to rise in my cool kitchen so I boosted it with a heating pad on low under the container and Laurie used her oven low/off so we could get to the required doubled status in a timely manner (about an hour longer than she had specified). When it came time to form the dough on the baking sheet pan we both felt that the dough was thinner than we thought it would be. Again, maybe we should have increased the rising time to account for our cooler kitchens this time of year.  I’m going to make it again at some point, maybe boosting the yeast a tiny bit and using a pan with slightly smaller dimensions to see if this will net me thicker pieces in the end.  Or maybe just letting it rise longer after formed in the pan will do the trick.

     
       The taste was really nice, and we did like the thinner pieces that had a crispy bottom with that light airy texture on the top.  I served it with a Donna Hay recipe that I made for this week’s group (warm meatballs, olives, tomatoes, and mozzarella) and it was perfect with all of that, definitely a repeat worthy recipe.

        If you would like to bake along with us, leave a comment.  You will need access to The Bread Bible recipes and you can blog it or not as you wish.  I don’t publish recipes that belong to cookbook authors out of respect for their work but sometimes you can search for and find the recipe online if you don’t have access to the book. We chose two recipes for January, this one and the next one we are making: Cheddar Loaf (found on page 280-284). We’d love to have you join us.