Recipe Rosemary & Garlic Sourdough Foccia

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With the weather being warmer and our evening soup being a touch bland I decided to make a tasty bread.
The sourdough starter is needing feeing every day at the moment. I have one in the fridge, but I prefer the one on the windowsill for some reason. Anyhow, when I fed it yesterday, I decided to make up a culture to make a bread from for today. This quantity will make 2-3 8 9 inch sized round foccia or 1 * 9 inch sized and 1 * 2lb loaf.

Ingredients
Sourdough culture
200g white flour
200g mineral water
1tsp sourdough starter

Bread
500g strong white bread flour
1.5tsp salt
1-2tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1-2tsp fresh thyme leaves
2-3tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 red onion, very finely chopped
1/2 white onion, very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed

Method
  • Starting the night before you want to make the bread, mix together the 1tsp (or so) of sourdough culture with the mineral water and then add the flour, cover and put aside overnight.
  • The following morning, mix the strong flour with the salt, rosemary and thyme and add the culture and the olive oil to the flour. Add enough mineral water to make a very soft dough. It should be really sticky and soft, hard to handle and pretty much stick to your hands...
  • Knead this dough for 15 mins or so (or use the mixer for most of it as I do :whistling:). The dough will start to sort itself out and not be a sticky mess and form a smooth but soft dough.
  • Oil a bowl, and put the dough in, and cover the bowl with clingfilm to stop the top drying out and leave the sourdough somewhere where it can double in size slowly. We are aiming for this taking 3-4 hours.
  • Turn out the dough onto a very lightly floured surface and stretch the dough out into a very large rectangle and scatter the chopped onion and garlic over the surface.
  • Fold the dough into thirds, turn 90 degrees and repeat.
  • Now knead until the onion and garlic is evenly distributed.
  • Cut the down up according to what you are making, 1kg for the 2lb loaf tin etc and put into the tins.
  • Knead/stretch the dough to the shape required and cover the dough over again with oiled clingfilm to stop it drying out and place it somewhere warm but not too warm. The aim is to give it roughly 3 hours to double in size.
  • Cook in a preheated oven Gas 6, (200C/400F) for 20 minutes, then drop the temperature to Gas 3, (170C/325F) for around another 20 minutes for a flat 9 inch foccia. The loaf will take another 20 minutes or so at Gas 3.

The smell was incredible...

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Lovely. Only thing I'd have done different is poking sprigs of rosemary into the dimples!
I did consider it and I had the rosemary ready to do that, but when do you add it? Before baking would mean that that the sprigs of rosemary would be in the oven for nearly 40 minutes or more and I could not imagine them surviving. I did try adding them when I dropped the temperature in the oven, but even then they would not insert into the fork marks...
 
I suppose I hadn't spotted how long you are cooking this. When I make it I only cook for twenty minutes. Just going to look at Paul Hollywood book to see what he does... Yes, he cooks his for only 15 mins at 220 C. I do 20 mins at 180 C.
 
I suppose I hadn't spotted how long you are cooking this. When I make it I only cook for twenty minutes. Just going to look at Paul Hollywood book to see what he does... Yes, he cooks his for only 15 mins at 220 C. I do 20 mins at 180 C.
is that a sourdough recipe though? things take longer with sourdough for some reason.
 
Have just done a quick search for Focaccia Sourdough and all the recipes seem to say 20 mins (one said 20-30). So I don't know. I will have to make some sourdough in order to experiment!

Talking of which, I have some bread dough I made 2 days ago (basic recipe using dried fast action yeast). I was trying to make French Bread, for which the dough needs to be wet and sticky. Unfortunately, I made it too wet and I realised I couldn't bake it like that. Its been sitting in a plastic tub for two days and has bubbles on top and is turning a bit brownish here and there. Is it possible to use this as a sourdough starter? Or does the fact I put dried yeast into the mix, mean that I can't. It smells OK...yeasty.
 
Have just done a quick search for Focaccia Sourdough and all the recipes seem to say 20 mins (one said 20-30). So I don't know. I will have to make some sourdough in order to experiment!

Talking of which, I have some bread dough I made 2 days ago (basic recipe using dried fast action yeast). I was trying to make French Bread, for which the dough needs to be wet and sticky. Unfortunately, I made it too wet and I realised I couldn't bake it like that. Its been sitting in a plastic tub for two days and has bubbles on top and is turning a bit brownish here and there. Is it possible to use this as a sourdough starter? Or does the fact I put dried yeast into the mix, mean that I can't. It smells OK...yeasty.

There is not set definition for sourdough. Providing it has some sourdough starter it can also have yeast in it and it one of the ways that supermarkets and others sell light, non chewy bread as sourdough. That is the defining factor with artisan sourdough. It is chewy in texture, not light and floury. I would try cooking yours. Pour it into a loaf tin and cook it and see what it tastes like. The yeasty smell is probably yeast. My sourdough has more of a fermented smell to it, and the starter can be amazingly potent!

With the sourdough I have been making, following this lady's blog (http://108breads.blogspot.co.uk/) cooking times have been much longer. Usually 20-30 mins at gas 6 then dropping it for 20-30 mins at something like gas 3. Such as this one - randomly picked http://108breads.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Freshloaf I just cooked it until it looked and sounded cooked.
 
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