Bread Experiments Chapter 3: Focaccia with Plain Flour vs. Bread Flour vs. Pizza Flour

Hi! I am back with the Bread Experiments. Today the experiment will be about

FOCACCIA.

My love story with focaccia started 10 years ago, during my visit to Cinque Terre, Italy. For those who have been there before, you will know that it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I still remember the fresh, salty sea breeze blowing in my face. When I was there, I tasted the most AMAZING focaccia with olives from this 'hole-in-the-wall' bakery. Quite literally, because the focaccia loaves were displayed on the window sill which is a wooden board in a hole cut out in the stone wall of a house. The focaccia was freshly-baked, warm and crispy on the outside, but so fluffy and flavourful inside. And on top, it was studded with whole olives. That was my lunch for that day. And I've been trying to recreate this focaccia at home, with some success. So I am happy to share the recipe here.

Ingredients:

150g Bread / Plain / Pizza flour
120 ml water 
A pinch (or 2) of salt
3-5g instant yeast
Olive oil

Bake 20 mins at 220 degrees C.

Looking at the ingredients, you will notice that the water content is 80%, much higher than what is typically used for other breads (60-70%). I followed Paul Hollywood's recipe from the one of technical challenges of the Great British Bakeoff (one of my favourite TV shows!). I have included the links for the Youtube videos below.

I started off the same as with other breads, weighing out the flour and adding the salt and yeast. I added the water bit by bit, allowing the flour to come together and absorb the water. It helps to use a fork or a spatula to stir the flour here so that it doesn't get too messy and everything starts sticking to your hand. Here's what it looks like after stirring and mixing.


After this, pour a drizzle of olive oil on the flour and using your hand or fingers, spread some olive oil on a clean surface. This will prevent the dough from sticking. And we can start kneading. As it is quite a wet dough, try to work quickly so that the dough will not keep sticking to your hands. Some olive oil on your hands will also help. The kneading is more of pulling the dough on the sides and folding it inwards. I also found that the following method worked well for me: pushing the dough from the centre sideways and then rolling the dough from one side to another, then do a half-turn and repeat. Keep doing this for 15 minutes. Add some olive oil when the dough becomes sticky again as you go along. 

As you can imagine, I have to keep kneading the dough and adding olive oil. Therefore I found it helpful to wrap a kitchen towel on the olive oil bottle with the help of a rubber band. This way, I can remove the messy and sticky kitchen towel after I'm done and I will still have my clean olive oil bottle back!


After I'm done kneading, I put the dough into a bowl to rise. I oiled the bowl with some olive oil and turned the dough around to ensure that the dough is coated with olive oil. This picture above is that of the plain flour foccacia dough. Until the baking stage there is not much difference among the 3 flours: bread, plain and pizza flour. Except when I used the pizza flour I felt that the dough remained very wet no matter how I kneaded it and I must admit that I cheated a little here, I only kneaded it for 10 mins because it was just too sticky!

Later on, I found out that the pizza flour I used was Tipo 00, which means that it is a very fine flour and such flours do not require as much water content as normal flours. 

After 1 hour, here's what the risen dough looks like. I did not use any steam / temperature for the rise. Just room temperature rise is ok.


Now it's time to shape the dough and leave for the second rise. Focaccia has a very distinctive shape, which is made by pushing out the dough 'blob' to the sides of the tray and using your fingers to make the depressions in the bread.


Here's what it looks like after shaping and ready for the second rise (45 mins to 1 hr). I put some rosemary on it to give it some flavour. It's ok to leave it plain too, as it already has the flavour of olive oil. Other ingredients like garlic, tomatoes, ham can also be added. While waiting, I preheated the oven to 220 degrees C. 


Ready for the oven! Before baking, drizzle a bit of olive oil. It seems that there is a lot of olive oil but I found that the dough just kept absorbing the oil. Just keep in mind to drizzle in small amounts and don't glug the whole thing in.


After baking for 20 mins at 220 degrees C, the focaccia is done!! It smells so good! (It smells good no matter which flour you use!) This picture above is that of the bread flour. It looks a bit knobbly and puffy in some places while the crust is quite crispy. When I cut through it, we can see some large uneven holes interspersed with small holes. Due to the high water content, the dough has less resistance and the growth of the bubbles from the yeast is less controlled and this gives an interesting texture to the focaccia. 


For the focaccia made with plain flour, the first impression I got was that the baked bread was quite hard and crispy. However, after it cooled down, the inside was still soft. 



The holes in the plain flour focaccia were more even. Also, after leaving the focaccia overnight, it developed a slightly chewy texture.

Finally for the pizza flour focaccia! I saw this pizza flour in one of my online supermarket shopping 'trips' and thought it would be good for focaccia. Somehow I imagined focaccia to be similar to pizza crust. This was the dough that became too wet. Fortunately it still turned out fine.




I found that this focaccia was the thickest among the three. It also has a fluffier texture compared to the plain flour and bread flour versions. When I tore it apart, I could see that there tended to be larger holes at the bottom and smaller ones on top. Also, upon leaving it to the next day, the focaccia is soft and fluffy. Two possible reasons could be the high water content (that is too high for the flour) and the fine-ness of the pizza flour.

In my opinion, I think the most suitable flour for the focaccia would be the bread flour, as it has the closest texture to the one I tasted in Cinque Terre all those years ago. As for the pizza flour, I will continue to try and find the best water content for it! 

As promised, I am leaving the links below on Paul Hollywood's method for making focaccia. 

The Great British Bakeoff (Focaccia)
Books from the Great British Bakeoff 

I'm going to eat my focaccia now! Can't wait!





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