Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking Focaccia

I'm jealous.

Wow, Greger.
That looks fabulous.
I'll play today. I didn't make much progress yesterday.

I've got whole wheat and white flour plus packets of yeast.
Sorry. No specialty stuff.
I'll see what I can do with that.

Thank you!

Have you ever considered doing a cookbook?

Rick, you have a stand mixer and enough spare time to learn to bake bread. Focaccia is all about method, not ingredients.
The recipe you posted is way too fussy. My basic bread recipe would make delicious Focaccia, the stuff I added was just frills.
Without some sort of mechanical mixer it's hard work to make bread dough, Kitchenaid stand mixers are great if you want to spend the money and enjoy the hands on experience of baking your own bread.

I'm working on it Joe: "The Lazy Man's Cookbook"
Like I said:The fact is that I'm a lazy man and would rather find an easier way. I used the stand mixer last night because the Focaccia was an experiment. For my everyday bread I use the Bread Machine to mix, knead, warm, do the first rise and punch down the dough. Then I take it out, oil it, put it in a bread pan for the second rise and bake it in the oven. There's maybe 10 minutes of total prep time but you have to be around and paying some small amount of attention for the 3 hours it takes from start to a finished loaf of bread on the table. It's no more effort than hopping in the car and running to the store for a loaf of bread.

I found this youtube too.

So between that and Greger's customizing suggestions, I think I'll get started soon and see how I do.

<sigh> My doctor wants me to stick to rye bread, not very much of it. I love the feel of bread dough when I am kneading it, and the smell of it baking.

I guess you missed the title of the book from which the recipe came: Williams-Sonoma


...all I have are 22 books of "fussy" recipes. Said recipes always come out perfect, but golly, are they labor intensive!


Looking forward to the Lazy Man cookbook - most likely to become a NY Times best seller!

Scout, Mr O isn't supposed to eat much bread either but he dearly loves it.
I get one loaf a week at the fm and ration it out.

I didn't buy any this week though because I wanted to try and make some.
Many years ago I did have a great deal of success with other kinds of breads. I decided to get off my lazy and do it again.

All y'all experts would laugh at my improvisations but listen up, kiddos, it's rising up and the dough smells heavenly.
I went even heavier with the spices plus many of them came from my urban garden.
I hope I'll have a good photo to show off here in a little bit.

Olyve, I'm sure your bread will come out wonderful! I hope you have fun doing it and I hope you keep doing it. So few people remain committed to putting the best possible bread on their tables; bread lovingly baked in their own ovens with only the ingredients they choose.