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Focaccia Barese (Focaccia from Bari)

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January 11, 2023

Never Explain.  Never Apologize.

Somebody famous once said that.

Well, according to Wikipedia, lots of famous people said that but the first, perhaps, is John Arbuthnot Fisher, a British Admiral of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

I’m about to do both!

It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post.  And many months had elapsed between my next-to-last blog post and that one.  I’m sorry!

Semola Remacinata, the finest grind of durum wheat flour in Italy.

It amazes, and gratifies me, however, that during that long dry spell I continued to get messages from new readers of the blog and new subscribers to my emails.

Join our mailing list and you’ll never miss a recipe again!

Now let me explain.

Since August 2021 I have been working on a book about how to make artisan Italian gelato.  All the time that I would have devoted to testing recipes and writing blog posts, and more, went to testing recipes for and, ultimately, writing the book.

I sent the manuscript to the publisher on November 1st.  I’ve since revised the manuscript based on multiple rounds of feedback from the developmental editor.  The text is now undergoing line editing.  The photoshoot was completed a few weeks ago and photos were tentatively selected for the book.

A shot of the photoshoot for my upcoming book on artisan Italian gelato.

I’m anxiously awaiting options for page layout and cover design.  And not-so-anxiously awaiting feedback from the line editor.

Finding myself with more flexibility, I am planning on doing more baking than gelato-making for the next few months.  Winter in Palm Springs is the time to use the oven!

In fact, I had planned to make a coconut almond cake today, my second in less than two weeks.   My goal is to keep at it until I reproduce a taste memory of a coconut almond cake that I ate, one and only one time, in 1967 (or summer arrives in Palm Springs, whichever comes first).  It’s probably a fool’s errand but it is giving focus to my baking efforts.

My first coconut almond cake of the winter baking season.

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A water leak last evening, while I was making dinner, means that the water to the house is shut off until the plumber gets here later today.  No water means no baking.  No baking means that I can repurpose my time to do my first blog post in nearly a year.

I promise to do my best to be more regular in posting.

Gelato alla Zuppa Inglese, one of over 75 gelato recipes in my upcoming book. This is an egg-based gelato studded with cake soaked in Italian Alkermes liquore and dark chocolate chips.

Now, let’s pivot to a recipe:  Focaccia Barese (Focaccia from Bari).

I like to serve homemade bread with dinner as much as possible.  This is a recipe that I turn to over and over to put a really tasty bread on the table with minimal active time and often little advance planning.

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 Focaccia Barese (Focaccia from Bari)
Focaccia is a yeast-risen bread that is made from a dough that has such a high proportion of water that it is almost a batter. Crushed tomatoes as well as capers and/or olives are strewn on top. A good sprinkling of dried oregano and a few glugs of good olive oil round out the flavor. In Italy, flour made from durum wheat comes in three grinds: fine, medium, and coarse, called semola (or semola remacinata, meaning “twice ground”), semolina, and semolino respectively. I usually use semola imported from Italy for this bread. If buying domestic semolina (in English, we use the same word, regardless of the grind) look for one that is finely ground.
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Course Breads and Rolls
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
loaf
Ingredients
Course Breads and Rolls
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
loaf
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Put flour, semola, and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle, NOT the dough hook, begin to mix on low.
  2. Slowly drizzle in the water. When the water is fully mixed in, sprinkle in the sugar.
  3. Add the salt and beat on medium high you see strings of gluten form in the dough, approximately 4-5 minutes. The dough will get stretchy and if you pull a bit, it should look stringy.
  4. Drizzle in the extra-virgin olive oil and mix on medium until well combined.
  5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for about two hours.
  6. Meanwhile, drain the canned tomatoes through a sieve. If the tomatoes are whole, coarsely crush them by hand and allow to drain further. If you are using diced tomatoes, crushing is not needed.
  7. Oil a circular baking pan, 12” in diameter x 2” high with more extra-virgin olive oil.
  8. Pour in the dough. Lightly oil your fingertips and press into the dough, without stretching, until it is evenly spread out in the pan.
  9. Arrange crushed tomatoes, capers, and olives, if using, on top. Drizzle with more extra-virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with oregano.
  10. Cover the pan and allow to rise. If you have another baking pan of the same size, turn it upside down and use it as a cover. If not, invert a large bowl over the baking pan. Whatever you do, be sure there is some space above the rim of the pan so that the dough has room to rise.
  11. When the dough reaches the top of the pan, carefully transfer it to the oven so it doesn’t deflate.
  12. Bake at 375°F with convection (or 400°F without convection) for approximately 35 minutes, turning once or twice, until browned and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan.
  13. Cool the bread in the pan set on a rack before removing it.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2023 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Focaccia con Salvia (Focaccia with Sage)

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January 9, 2017

I really enjoy baking.  There was a time when my Sunday morning routine included mixing up a batch of bread dough, then reading the New York Times and sipping coffee with our two Italian Greyhounds cuddled up next to me while the dough rose.  The bread would be ready for our main meal, which frequently was around 1 PM on Sunday but often got moved to the evening depending on what was happening that day.

I lost that routine somewhere along the way when work got too busy.  I still make bread frequently but I’ve lost the rhythm of baking every Sunday morning.

When I was growing up, my Aunt Margie baked bread rolls every week.  I’m not sure why, but I think it was on Thursdays. I remember little balls of rising dough, in neat rows, resting on top of the same cabinet, covered by the same cloth, every week.  As a child, I marveled at how they all were exactly the same size. It seemed impossible.

Those rolls were a staple of my childhood.  Lunch often consisted of hot Calabrese salami sandwiched inside one of those rolls.  Sometimes it was peanut butter and jelly.  Other times it was peanut butter and banana, a combination my Italian-born mother-in-law still doesn’t understand!

I still eat sandwiches of Calabrese salami for lunch on a regular basis. Some habits don’t die.  The sandwiches are often on my home-made bread baked in a loaf pan or on a split open chunk of focaccia, but unfortunately, not on Aunt Margie’s bread rolls.

Aunt Margie died a few years back.  Even though she had stopped baking rolls every week long before that, periodically she would ship me a box filled with her home-made bread rolls.  Some I put in the fridge, others went into the freezer.  A quick zap in the microwave, a few slices of salami, and I was re-living a favorite childhood memory.

Memories are funny, though. We never know what experiences will become favorite memories. We just have to take them as they come. Maybe the best we can do is to create experiences that will become favorite memories for others. We just never know what they’ll be.

Print Recipe
 Focaccia con Salvia (Focaccia with Sage)
This is a sticky dough. Because of that, it is much easier to mix it using a mixer with a bread hook rather than doing it by hand. On a busy day, when I still want homemade focaccia with dinner, I allow my bread machine to make the dough. When the machine indicates the dough is ready, I just shape it and proceed as described below. I do a lot of baking so I buy dry yeast in one-pound packages rather than in those little envelopes. It doesn’t take many of those envelopes to equal the cost of a full pound of yeast so, even if you throw away a portion of the large package on the expiration date, you will probably have saved money. And who knows, all that yeast sitting in the fridge might just prompt you to bake more, which isn’t a bad thing after all.
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Course Breads and Rolls
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Passive Time 2 hours
Servings
loaf
Ingredients
Course Breads and Rolls
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Passive Time 2 hours
Servings
loaf
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Fill the bowl of an electric mixer with hot water. Put the dough hook in the water. Allow the bowl and hook to warm up for a few minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. When ready to proceed, drain and dry the bowl and hook.
  2. Add the 220 ml of warm water, yeast and one tablespoon of the flour to the warmed bowl. Using the dough hook, blend the ingredients briefly. Turn off the machine and allow the mixture to sit until it is bubbling and creamy.
  3. When creamy, approximately 10 minutes, add half the remaining flour and the chopped sage. Using the dough hook, mix to combine.
  4. With the mixer running, add the salt then drizzle in the olive oil. After the oil is incorporated add the remaining flour. Mix approximately 8-10 minutes. The dough should be soft and sticky.
  5. Oil a large bowl with olive oil.
  6. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and shape into a ball. It is easier to do this if you rub some oil on your hands. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and roll it around a bit to coat it with oil.
  7. Put a piece of oiled waxed paper over the bowl and then cover the bowl with a towel. Allow the dough to rise until doubled.
  8. Punch the dough down and form into a ball once again.
  9. Oil a 12-14 inch round pizza pan with a little olive oil.
  10. Put the ball of dough on the pizza pan and begin to press down, using both hands, gently stretching the dough, rotating the pan as you go. The dough will spring back. After six or eight stretches, flip the dough over and repeat. Then, allow the dough to sit for five minutes. Repeat the stretching, flipping, and stretching again. The dough will not spring back quite as much and you’ll be able to get it stretched out a little more. You might have to repeat the stretching-flipping-stretching-waiting routine two or three more times until the dough is shaped into a 12-inch circle. It’s easier use a 14-inch pan because you can overstretch the dough a bit then allow it to spring back to the size you want.
  11. Using your fingertips, press the dough to create a bumpy surface.
  12. Cover the dough and allow it to rise until doubled. This will only take about 20-25 minutes. You can cover it with oiled waxed paper but if you have a deep dish pizza pan, you can just flip the pan upside down over the dough and skip the waxed paper altogether.
  13. While the dough is rising, heat the oven to 425°F.
  14. Make an egg wash by beating the egg with two teaspoons of water.
  15. When the dough has doubled, brush the top with egg wash. Arrange the sage leaves on top of the dough and brush each one with more egg wash.
  16. Bake the focaccia at 425°F until golden brown, 15-20 minutes.
  17. Slide the focaccia off of the pizza pan and onto a rack to cool.
Recipe Notes

If you want to try to mix this in a bread machine, consult the directions for your machine.  You can use what I do as a guide, however.  Combine the flour, salt and chopped sage.  Stir to combine. Put the water in the bottom of the bread pan (do not use warm water).  Put the flour mixture on top of the water.  Make a small well in the top of the flour with the back of a spoon.  Add the yeast to the well, being certain the yeast is above the level of the water. Drizzle the olive oil on top of the flour, not touching yeast.  Use the dough cycle.  When the dough cycle is complete, remove the dough, form into a ball, and proceed with step 9 above.

Copyright © 2017 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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