Back to Baking

Oh my goodness. After what has seemed like a month long illness, I am finally getting back to normal. As such, I thought it was high time to get back to my adventures in baking.
I have been ever so neglectful with keeping up with all of my challenges, and believe me, I have felt terribly guilty about it. So, even though the temperature is about 40C with the humidex, I was willing to turn on my oven to an astounding 450F to finish this week's Baking Beauties challenge.



Focaccia is something I just love to eat. We have made one version already from "Baking with Julia" (Fruit Focaccia), but I knew this one was more my style. Leaf Shaped Fouggase was the recipe we tackled this week. I thought it would be quite easy, especially when you consider we have made the base focaccia dough before. Let's just say I had a few mishaps along the way. Also, you must begin the whole process a day before you plan to serve the bread, as the dough needs to chill for at least 24 hours.
After that, there is just the simple task of shaping the dough into a leaf and brushing with olive oil, herbs and salt. Another indication of how sick I've been is that we were out of olive oil. Luckily, I had some avocado oil that I think worked very well in it's place.




I was looking for the little bubbles on the surface of focaccia, and could only see a few by the edge of the dough. I decided to re-read the instructions and realized that instead of spraying the oven with water (as the recipe stated), I sprayed the actual focaccia. Oops!
The smell in the condo was out of this world. It was reminiscent of the scent when you first walk into a Subway (as in the restaurant, not the TTC). Yum. Just after twenty minutes, the focaccia were done and I took them out of the oven. The intense heat from the door opening set off our fire alarm. I was so stunned that I knocked over my bottle of avocado oil. Wonderful.
Oh well, all was well. The focaccia was baked to a lovely golden colour. I couldn't wait for it to cool to taste it. It was delicious! All the mishaps were worth it.