focaccia(geddon)

In my last post you may have noticed that the bread basket (and the background) contained focaccia bread. Indeed, focaccia bread was something we made about once a week (making enough to last the week) because it was so effort-intensive. In fact, focaccia-making sucked up so much time and effort, the nickname "focaccia-geddon" was coined for the days when we did in fact have to make it.



Focaccia belongs to the category of enriched dough (dough containing fat) due to it containing copious amounts of oil. Oil, or fat, gets between the gluten molecules and prevents strands from developing - which is why focaccia's texture is fluffy and less like chewy bread.

There are also copious amounts of rosemary and garlic that get mixed in with the dough.



Here the focaccia is being portioned into ten pieces, each to eventually take up a whole sheet tray. (Note: I was not involved in the beginning of this process, so I haven't included the recipe, but I intend to make it at home sometime this summer and will likely share the results then.)



Once portioned and rested on well-oiled sheet trays, the dough goes through two pressings with about half an hour between each. The first pressing is to spread the dough out evenly, and the second pressing extends the dough to fill the entire sheet tray.



Once pressed, the focaccia gets drizzled with salt and more oil, then holes are poked throughout the dough (I assume for venting purposes).



The toppings vary from one focaccia-geddon to the next, but we chose tomatoes, mushrooms, pickled jalapenos and a shredded cheese blend (with some toppings omitted on some doughs to accommodate for people's preferences).



After baking, here they are out of the oven, a little brown but just as delicious. Some were used the same day, others got plastic-wrapped and frozen for the remaining non-focaccia-geddon days of the week.