Life in the time of COVID-19: Focaccia Sourdough

I made focaccia for James' friend today and since I was in an experimental mood, I tried using my starter instead of commercial yeast. Ok, I also baked because Im so frustrated with what's happening back home. Maria Ressa was convicted of cyber libel. WTF. I channeled my anger into something more productive.

I used a scaled down version of the recipe I found online. Mine was:

• 200g BF
• 100g APF
• 240g water
• 30g starter (1:1:1)
• 2% salt 

I usually do autolyse in my sourdough breads so I used it also for the focaccia. Here's what I did.

905am. Autolyse. I mixed all the flour with about 220g of water and let it rest for 45 minutes. The dough is a bit dry but it's ok. We'll introduce more hydration with the levain later. 

I saved about 20g of water for the starter later. 

950am.  I combined the starter, water, and salt. I mixed them together before combining it with the autolyzed dough. This is the most tiring part since it's quite difficult to remove the lumps from the dough. Imagine mixing a dry dough and a soupy-like starter. 

1030am Stretch and fold 1. There were still sump lumpy dough here so I did a bit of kneading. Just a bit. 

1135am Stretch and fold 2

1205nn Stretch and fold 3

115pm  Split and fold 

115-335  Bulk rise. Do not touch the dough at this point. Wait until it doubles in size. It was quite warm this afternoon so it rose fast. the original recipe required 4 hours for the dough to double in size so you have to account for this when you are in a colder climate

340pm I drizzled some oil in the dough here and transferred it to my baking tray.  I know this is focaccia and doesnt require shaping but I like the technique used in making sourdough so I just did it :)

4pm. I preheated my oven at 220C and left the tray that I will be using inside. I was trying to apply the theory behind oven spring here - the hotter the surface of the tray/stone/DO/skillet, the higher the oven spring will be. 

At this point, I also dimpled my focaccia and inserted slices of garlic into those dimples.

430pm. Bake the dough for 30 mins at 220C.  Every oven is different so observe how your bread looks like so that it doesnt burn or undercook.

Ahhh it looks so good!

Look at those dimples!

And those crumbs!