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Focaccia Bread
Focaccia is a popular Italian bread, and we get why. Fragrant, oily, and salty – delicious!
When you bake it in your Ztove pan it gets a crust you can’t really get any other way.
The dough proofs in the pan at 38 °C. This makes this recipe extra easy, quick and with minimal washing up. And the result is better than with the traditional method. What’s not to like?
Ingredients
Herb Oil
2 pcs. Garlic cloves
1 dl Olive oil
7 gram Rosemary
7 gram Parsley
7 gram Oregano
7 gram Basil
1 tsp. Salt
The Dough
3 dl Water
10 gram Baking yeast (Fresh yeast)
2 tsp. Salt
350 gram All-purpose flour
Steps
Make the herb oil
Remove the peel and coarsely chop the garlic.
Heat the pan to 130 °C. Add oil and garlic to the pan. Roast the garlic for 5 minutes.
Strain the garlic and pour the oil back into the pan.
Add the herbs
Lower the temperature to 38 °C.
Remove the stems from the herbs and add the leaves to the oil. Cover the bottom of the pan with the herbs. Sprinkle with salt, preferably sea salt flakes.
Leave the oil to infuse while you make the dough.
Mix the dough
Dissolve the fresh yeast in the water.
Add salt. Then add half of the flour and mix.
Add the remaining flour and mix until combined, without any pockets of flour. The dough only needs to be kneaded with a spatula for about 1 minute.
Proof the dough
Place the dough on top of the herbs and oil in the pan.
The pan must not be 130 °C, as it was when the garlic was added, because then you can kill the yeast. However, it doesn’t matter if the pan hasn’t cooled down completely to the 38 ºC it’s been pre-set for. A temperature around 50-60 ºC are fine. Because when you add the dough, the temperature quickly drops.
Pull at the edges of the dough to stretch it out. However, the dough doesn’t need cover the whole surface of the pan. It’s okay if there’s about 5 cm around the edge.
Add a lid and let the dough rise for 1 hour at 38 °C.
Bake the bread
Increase the temperature to 170 °C.
Bake the bread for 30 minutes, with the lid on. Use the lid to turn the dough. Pour the bread onto the lid so that the unbaked side is facing up. Place the pan over the lid and quickly flip the pan and lid, so the baked side is up in the pan.
Bake the bread for 15 minutes on the other side.
Then remove the lid and bake for another 5 – 10 minutes without the lid on. This allows any excess water to evaporate.
Let the bread cool
Transfer the bread to a wire rack and let it cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.
It is best to cool the bread on a wire rack, as this way the bottom remains crispy.
Notes
You don’t need to use a very high-quality olive oil, as its flavour won’t come to justice in this recipe.
You can also use 100 g butter instead of oil. Then just bake the bread at 165 °C instead. And no lid, when baking the second side. Butter contains water, so if you use butter there is more water there need to evaporate.
You can also make the bread without the herb oil, but just salt.
This recipe is made for the 28 cm pan. If you want to use the 24 cm pan, just make 2/3 of the recipe. That is, multiply each quantity by 0.7.
