Bake Your Own Bread: Focaccia

There is nothing in the world like the smell of baking bread.  And nothing like the taste of fresh bread that you've smelled baking.  I got a bread machine for Christmas my sophomore year of college and was so incredibly excited.  Rather than buy boxes of bread mix, I returned to my dorm room after Christmas break with canisters of flour and yeast and other necessities and proceeded to bake my little heart out.  It was a good quarter to be in school.

I bake my own bread from time to time because it is very enjoyable and so very satisfying.  The problem, though, comes with the fact that I LOVE bread and could just sit and eat a whole loaf of the fresh stuff and this is something I try to avoid.  There are times, though, that fresh bread is just what you need and so you make it.

  

A blog I have recently come across called girlichef (go read, it's fantastic!) has a feature called Bake Your Own Bread (BYOB) that I wanted to join up with, so it was time to bake some bread.  I also have been meaning to make some fancy grilled cheese (stay tuned for that), so I picked something that would be thin and crisp up nicely and be a little different than regular sandwich bread.  What I ultimately made was some foccacia that I adapted from a Cook's Illustrated recipe.  The dough is pretty sticky, so the dough does the second raise on the baking tray that is liberally oiled which results in the bottom being golden and crispy, almost fried.  Delicious.

You can click on the recipe to get a downloadable copy so you don't have to write it down.  I definitely recommend you try it--it's great for sandwiches and any leftovers can be made into superb croutons.  I also recommend that you go visit girlichef and the BYOB link up and see what other people baked up.

How about you, bread fanatic?  Or bread indifferent?

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