My favourite foccacia

This recipe is easily one of my most-used bread recipes. It's one that I photocopied from a cookbook of my Mum's, and I just love it. If you're into bread making, I urge you to try this next time you fancy a nice warm chunk of herby bread to go with some homemade soup or a hearty winter stew. It's also wonderful toasted or grilled the next day and topped with sweet, ripe tomatoes or with piles of mashed and salted avocado (or whatever you like on toast. Grilled garlicky mushrooms would be wonderful. Ooh and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. I'm hungry...)

The secret to this is to knead in the olive oil after the first rising. That, it seems, is what gives the bread its wonderful density and richness. It also imparts a lovely olivey aroma. This part of the process is rather messy and squelchy, but fun if you like to play with your food! If you're using a bread maker, I guess you just add the oil after the first proof and let it knead it briefly again.

This makes 2 pretty decent sized foccacias, but I often just make half. Or make the full recipe and freeze it.

Foccacia*

1 Tbsp sugar
750ml lukewarm water
1 Tbsp dried yeast
1 Tbsp salt
1 kg flour (the original recipe says plain flour; I use strong bread-making flour. Use what you have and I doubt it'll matter)
75ml or 1/4 cup olive oil (I just use my light cooking olive oil here, but feel free to use half extra virgin. I suspect a really strong EVOO would be quite overpowering in the final bread)
handful of fresh herbs - rosemary is the classic, but thyme is lovely, fresh oregano would work too. Strip the leaves and finely chop (although I keep a few whole springs and leaves to poke into the top before cooking)
rock or flaky sea salt

Dissolve sugar in 1 cup of the warm water then sprinkle over the yeast and leave to get frothy
In a large bowl, mix the first measure of salt with the flour. When the yeast is frothy, add it to the flour and then add the remaining water (I like to rinse out the yeasty remains with the rest of the water). Mix to a dough.
Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Place in a bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Punch down and turn it onto the bench. Knead the olive oil into the dough a little at a time. It's quite slippery when you begin, but the bread 'takes' the oil after a while. You'll feel this happen. Just keep repeating (and adding some of the chopped herbs as well) until all the oil has been used.
Divide dough into 2-4 pieces (depending on how large you want your loaves to be. I've made mini individual foccacia rolls on occasion which work nicely as well. Suit yourself) and place on a greased tray or in a greased tin. Flat the dough with your fingers firmly. Cover again and leave to rise until doubled. Once doubled, brush lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with more herbs and the salt (or whatever other foccacia topping you fancy - olives, sundried toms - although these often burn - thinly sliced potato, sweet caramelised onions with thyme and some feta...go to town with your experiments!).
Bake at 220degC for 15 mins then reduce to 200degC for a further 20 mins. Brush or spritz the dough with water every 10 mins during cooking (and the odd splash of oil) - this will ensure a wonderfully dense crust.

Enjoy!

*this recipe has been borrowed from the Destitute Gourmet for whose recipes I am often very grateful!