Paulchens FoodBlog?!

Today is World Bread Day AND the reveal day of us Bread Baking Babes.

A nice coincidence, isn’t it? What could be a better way to celebrate this day of bread with another yummylicious bread brought to you by the most stunning group of crazy ladies I’ve ever had the chance to be introduced to.

Like last month I baked this bread while being accompanied by some of my Babe sisters at Google+ hangout. There was a lot of laughter and wine involved and even tho Google was acting up on us throwing us out every now and then, partially muting one of us or denying us the sight of one or two others we had fun.

Aehm, back to the bread baking business: Elizabeth was serving as the Kitchen Babe of the Month – please be sure to visit her blog for all the important information! She made us bake Fougasse!

I’ve never baked this lovely bread before but I sure will again because I liked it very much and it was done pretty easy!

Fougasse

Fougasse

inspired by Chad Robertson’s fougasse recipe on page 139 in “Tartine Bread” and Patricia Wells’ fougasse recipe on page 191 in “Patricia Wells at Home in Provence”

Focaccia Dough

based on the focaccia recipe in “The Italian Baker” by Carol Field

• ¾ tsp active dry yeast
• 340ml luke warm water
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• pinch malt powder, optional
• 2½ unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• ½ Tbsp kosher salt

Mixing

1. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen, you can start this in the morning if it’s cool and in the early afternoon if it’s warm. Spoon the yeast into the bottom of a medium to large sized bowl. (I use a casserole dish). Pour the water over top and whisk until the yeast has dissolved and the mixture looks like diluted cream.
2. Add the olive oil and dump the flours, malt and salt overtop. Using a wooden spoon, mix together until the mixture comes away from the side of the bowl.
3. Turn the dough out onto an unfloured board.
4. Wash and dry the mixing bowl (cleans the bowl AND washes your hands).
5. Using a dough scraper as your friend and ally to keep the board clean, hand knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is soft and silky.
6. Put the kneaded dough into the clean mixing bowl. Cover it and leave on the counter (out of drafts) until it doubles.

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Making the Fougasse

• your bread dough (see above)
• Corn Meal
• pizza stone, vaguely optional but highly recommended

Preparation

1. Mix, knead and allow your favourite bread dough to rise to double. If you are adding anything like olives, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, caramelized garlic cloves and/or walnuts, mix them into the dough near the end of kneading it or on the first turn of the dough. If you are wanting herbs/spices on top, please add them just before baking.
2. Shaping: About an hour before baking the fougasse, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and press it out into an oval (or a rectangle; or a circle). Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out until it is about 1 cm (1/2 in.) thick.
3. Sprinkle corn meal (to act as ball-bearings) on the peel – or an upside-down cookie sheet. Lay the shaped dough on the peel. Using a pizza wheel and “swift, decisive strokes” cut a design of a leaf or ladder into the dough. Take care not to cut through the outer edges. From the edges, pull the dough outwards to make sure the cuts are spaced. Cover with a clean tea towel followed by a plastic grocery bag and allow to rise. (Robertson allows the shaped bread to rise first and does the slashes at the last minute. Naturally, because of my stellar reading skills, I didn’t notice that until I had already made fougasse several times by slashing it directly after shaping it.)
4. Just Before Baking: Drizzle with olive oil and scatter coarsely ground sea salt over top. (You can also do this step just after the bread is baked; that is what Robertson suggests. Or you can forget to add the olive oil at all, as I did the last time.)

Baking

1. If the weather is fine or just too hot to be turning the oven on, fougasse can be baked in the barbecue. If it’s raining or just too cold and dark, of course the fougasse can be baked in a conventional oven.
   • Baking in the Barbecue: Put a pizza stone over the half of the barbecue you will turn on and preheat the barbecue to high. Transfer the fougasse to the pizza stone that is sitting over direct heat. Close the lid of the barbecue and bake for about 8 minutes, rotating the stone once or twice or thrice to account for uneven heat in the barbecue (Hot Spots!!!). Then move the stone over to cook with indirect heat (lid down again) until the fougasse is done (about another 8 minutes)… our gas barbecue can be turned off on one side. Watch for hotspots and move the fougasse around to keep it from burning on one side. Because of the heat from the bottom, we like to turn the fougasse over. Just make sure to wait until the top crust is relatively well-formed.
   • Baking in the Oven: Put a pizza stone on the middle or top shelf of the oven and turn it to 400F (200C). Transfer the fougasse onto the hot stone and bake for about 15 minutes, turning it around at least once to account for uneven oven heat.
2. When the fougasse done, remove it from the heat and allow to cool on a well-ventilated rack. To serve, break it apart and dip it into good quality olive oil with herbs if you want.

Note: I divided my dough into two equal parts and made two different flavors:

For one I used 6-7 black olives that were marinated with oranges (cut into little pieces) and a handful of pine nuts plus topped the shaped Fougasse with coarse sea salt.

For the second one I just kneaded a handful of coarsly ground roasted pumpkin seeds into the dough right before shaping.

Fougasse with olives and pine nuts

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Don’t forget to visit my fellow Babes and see what they did with this lovely Bread this month.
Oh and don’t forget to visit Katie our BBBBB (Bitchin’ Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire) who writes up such lovely round ups of all the BBB Breads every month!

Bake My Day – Karen | blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth | Cookie Baker Lynn – Lynn | Feeding my enthusiasms – Pat | I Like To Cook – Sara | Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya | Lucullian Delights – Ilva | Notitie Van Lien – Lien |Wild Yeast – Susan

Canela and Comino – Gretchen (Babe on Hiatus) | Grain Doe – Görel (Babe on Hiatus) | Living on bread and water – Monique (Babe on Hiatus) | My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna (Babe on Hiatus) | The Sour Dough – Breadchick Mary (Babe on Hiatus) | Thyme For Cooking – Katie (Babe on Hiatus)

Thinking of you with Love: Glenna (Alumni Babe) | Sher (Angel Babe)

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I send this over to Susan’s Yeastspotting.
YeastSpotting is a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient.
If you are not familiar with YeastSpotting just scroll the archive and you’ll know what I am talking about.
To submit your post simply klick here!