This week’s rewind features a bread recipe. I was going to link this page to the original blog post, from 2015. Instead, I’ve decided to save you a click and have copied it across. If you want to go to my baking site, the link is HERE
You can find a lot of other recipes on that site, not just bread but biscuits, scones and even onion rings, all taken from the time I was running an Organic bakery in Brixham.
Here’s the post.
I like a piece of focaccia with any Italian food, it mops up the sauce and tastes good on its own. Mine is made with Spelt Flour and lots of Olive Oil. It has a secret ingredient for extra crunch.
The Recipe.
Makes four loaves, you can scale the quantities to make two, or make four and freeze them for later.
1000g Spelt Flour (I used half White and Half Wholemeal Spelt)
700g Warm water
100g Olive Oil
20g Instant Yeast
20g Salt
40g Coarse Semolina.
200g Sun-dried Tomatoes, Sulphite Free of course, chopped up small.
Extra Olive Oil, to coat your baking trays
Method.
Make a normal dough, adding the chopped tomatoes along with everything else. It will be a wetter dough than you might be used to, don’t worry about that. Keep it moving and it will be fine. After kneading for around ten minutes by hand, or four in a mixer on slow speed, leave the dough in a warm place to prove for around an hour and a half, or an hour if you have a proving oven.
Top Tip.
If you don’t have a proving oven, here’s how you can use your ordinary oven as one.
Place a pan of boiling water on the base of your oven.
Place the container of dough in the oven, uncovered. NO PLASTIC CONTAINERS.
Turn the oven to MAX for ONE MINUTE ONLY, then turn if OFF and leave it for an hour.
Back to the recipe,
After the first rise, cut the dough into four equal portions and stretch it into shape in heavily oiled trays.
Leave the dough to rise again for 40 minutes while your oven heats up (don’t forget to take the water out if you were using the oven to prove). Bake at 220°C for 15-20 minutes, for an internal temperature of 96°C.
I hope you enjoy the Focaccia, look out for more recipes every week, as well as my thoughts on writing on Monday and the Indie Showcase on Thursday.
