Focaccia {bba}

I've scaled plenty of recipes in my baking experience, but this is the first time I've cut a Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe by more than half. When it came time to bake Focaccia, the next bread in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I was the only person home for an entire week, so I made just 1/6 of the recipe. It turned out to be an adorable little bread and quite tasty too!


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I reduced the recipe quantities to 1/6, mixing the dough in my mini food processor. It came together beautifully.

- I used high gluten flour.

- I figured that I needed a baking pan about 6' x 6" for my 1/6 recipe of dough. There are no shallow pans in my kitchen that size, so I ended up using a toaster oven tray that was 6" wide and blocked across one end by aluminum foil divider to make a square baking area. Then I pressed the dough into the roughly 6" x 6" area.

- To flavor my olive oil I warmed it with sage, oregano, thyme, and two kinds of basil from my garden. To that I added salt, pepper, bit of red pepper flakes, and a bit of freshly chopped garlic. This oil is then brushed on the dough at various times.

- Reinhart's directions stressed the liberal amounts of olive oil. When I was finished, there was oil all over the dough and pan! As the bread baked, the olive oil seeped through very top and very bottom, making the outside edges lightly crunchy.

- My bread didn't get very tall, nor did it have a bunch of big holes inside.


the verdict:

The fragrance of this bread as it baked was tantalizing, and the taste did not disappoint. The outside was a bit crunchy and the inside was wonderfully warm and tender with savory hints from the herbs and oil.

I'm submitting this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of yeasty goodness. Stop by and check out the beautiful breads!