Cafe Lula

Bread has always been one of my favourite things to eat. I am a huge fan of carbs in general (which explains my big fat bum), but bread is my number one favourite. I would always buy fresh bread when I got my weekly shop in, but recently I discovered how ace it is to make your own. You can’t tell from my recent blog posts (because I’ve been a bit lazy getting recipes up) but since I made chorizo and thyme fougasse a few weeks ago, I’ve been on a huge bread kick.

I’ve made ciabatta, stromboli, panini, but the one that felt like the biggest challenge was this focaccia. You add a ton of water (not literally) to the flour and it’s massively scary. The dough is all squidgy, kneading it is virtually impossible and you cannot believe there is any way it’s going to rise. But it will, promise, so let’s hold hands and make some focaccia. Actually, let’s not hold hands, you need both hands for this recipe. We can hold hands after, if you like. Although that might be weird and you’ll probably want to eat bread. Let’s just make bread.

Focaccia

Adapted from Great British Bake Off: How to Bake by Linda Collister

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

250g strong white bread flour

5g fine sea salt

7g fast-action dried yeast (I used the Hovis stuff that comes in 7g sachets)

1 tbsp olive oil

200ml cool water

Line a 30cm by 20cm baking tray with greaseproof paper and oil a work surface (be quite generous with the oil) ready for kneading the dough on.

Put the flour, salt and yeast into a large mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the olive oil and 150ml of the water.

Gradually mix the flour into the water, working from the inside edge of the well to the outside of the bowl. Do this first with a wooden spoon, then get your hands in there to form a rough dough.

Gently massage the dough for 5-10 minutes, adding the extra 50ml of water very slowly. I added it 5-10ml at a time. The dough will be very, very wet.

The next bit is going to seem a bit impossible, but bear with me. Rub your hands with some olive oil. For the next five minutes, you’re going to stretch the dough by pulling one side up…

Then drop it over itself, so you’ve folded it in half. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat, so that you keep stretching and folding.

Once the 5 minutes is up, tip the dough onto the well-oiled surface. Oil your hands again and knead the dough for 5 minutes. You may need to keep oiling the surface as you go, as the dough is very sticky. Don’t worry if you keep having to scoop it together again with your hands.

Once you have kneaded it for 5 minutes, brush a large bowl with olive oil and put the dough into it.

Cover the bowl tightly with clingfilm and leave the dough to rise at room temperature for about 1.5 hours, until it has increased to nearly four times it’s original size.

Gently tip the dough onto the baking tray. It will feel very delicate and full of air.

Very gently pull the edges of the dough to stretch it roughly to the size of the baking tray (my baking tray was 23cm by 33cm, so a little too big. I stretched my dough to 19cm by 27cm).

Let the dough rise, uncovered, for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

I left mine plain, but at this point you can drizzle the dough with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, add some rosemary if you like. Bake for 20-25 minutes (mine took 20 minutes in a 200C fan oven) until golden.

The underneath of the dough should be browned.

I ate this warm from the oven and it was lovely and soft. I didn’t find it kept very well, so if you’re eating it the next day I would reheat it in the oven.