Lesson 6: Breads

To discuss baking with herbs and spices, this lesson will focus on breads using illustrative recipes. We’re going to start with pizza and focaccia, discuss classic yeast breads, and end up with quick breads.

Pizza & Focaccia

Pizza and Focaccia are great breads to start with when you want to use more herbs and spices in baking. Both almost cry out for herbal or spicy flavors - think of the ubiquitous jar of red pepper flakes at pizza houses. There is relatively little difference between pizza and focaccia, in fact, I use the same basic dough recipe for both.

If the bread’s going to be an accompaniment to a meal, then I make focaccia. With pizza, I only allow the dough to rise one time, but with focaccia, I let the dough rise a second time since the end result should be thicker than pizza. Also, the herbs are incorporated directly in the dough as well as sprinkled on top, along with olive oil and maybe sautéed onions.

Unless I’m going to use the focaccia to make sandwiches, I form the dough in a flat circle which has a 9” diameter. The pie is then freely placed on a baking sheet. Focaccia does makes great sandwich bread – it will rise enough in the oven to be sliced horizontally. If it’s designated for sandwiches, instead of forming the dough in a circle, bake the dough in a heavily oiled jelly roll pan.

Pizza, by contrast, is rolled out after only one rising so it will not rise as much in the oven as focaccia. Also, since it’s really a full meal, there are lots more topping possibilities. But as with so much in the kitchen, once you know the basics – in this case how to manipulate the dough - there are no rules and you can revise the dish to suit your own preferences.

Also, while I’m going to give you a full recipe for a rosemary focaccia, including the dough, do not overlook the availability of premade pizza dough in the grocery store. Add herbs to that dough, roll it out and bake it. It will still make great bread and the fresh herbs you add will make the bread seem homemade.

But if you can, try the homemade dough once even if you have a fear of working with a yeast dough. One thing that makes pizza/focaccia less intimidating is that kneading is much less important than with other yeast breads. Kneading helps develop gluten, i.e. the protein structure that holds up risen bread. As pizza/focaccia dough does not rise much, a lot of kneading is not required. In fact, in the recipe below, almost all the kneading is done by the food processor.

Rosemary Focaccia

This will make a 9” circle, enough to serve 4 – 6:

• 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 package instant dry yeast
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups water, (use spring water if your water has off flavors like chlorine)
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons or more (by taste) of chopped rosemary, (possible other herbs include sage, parsley, chives, tarragon, cilantro, or savory).
• Cornmeal for use on the baking sheet

Add the flour, yeast, and salt to a food processor outfitted with a steel blade and pulse several times to mix. Pour in the water and 3 tablespoons of the olive oil. Pulse until the flour begins to cling together, and then let the machine run for 20 seconds. Dump the dough into a large enough bowl so that it can comfortably rise to twice its volume. Let it rest for 10 – 15 minutes while you’re washing and chopping the herbs.

Divide the chopped herbs into two equal portions and reserve one portion to use for a topping. Turn the rested dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the non-reserved herbs into the dough, slowly incorporating all of them into the dough. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a damp towel, and let the dough double in size. This should take 1 ½ - 2 hours.

When the dough has doubled, turn the dough back onto the floured surface and punch it down. Shape it into a ball and press it out to form a 9” circle. Sprinkle a little raw corn meal on a baking sheet and put the circle of dough on the sheet. Recover it with the damp towel, and let it rise for another hour.

About 20 minutes before the dough is ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. When the dough is risen, just before baking, use your finger to poke holes through the dough, almost to the bottom. Coat the dough with the rest of the olive oil. Sprinkle the reserved herbs over the surface along with some kosher salt.

Bake the focaccia for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then turn the oven down to 400 degrees. After another 10 minutes, check to see if the bread is done. The best way to determine if the focaccia is done, (and in fact if any bread is done) is by temperature. Using an instant read thermometer, the temperature in the thickest part should read 200 degrees. If it is not done, and the bottom of the bread is turning too dark, turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees and check after another ten minutes.

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