Focaccia al Silverton

Thursday was my daughter's Jr. High School graduation.  A party was held at one of the graduates homes to celebrate.  Originally the plan was to make pizza in their wood-fired oven, but under the influence of Nancy Silverton's recently published focaccia recipe, we decided to try that instead.

I did some calculations based on the LA Times article and determined that her hydration was 75% +/- with about 2% olive oil, salt, and about 3% rye flour added.  I swapped whole wheat for rye (as I didn't have any rye in-stock) and using my standard starter (levain), mixed up two batches of dough the night before for a total of 180 ounces of dough.  I let this ferment on the counter for an hour and a half, then did a fold, and put in a dough tub in the fridge overnight for a retarded ferment.


My friend Andrea did something similar, but an 80% hydration and 30% wheat flour.


In the morning I pulled the dough from the counter, let it warm up, and then did another fold. I trucked the dough over to her house about three hours later and divided it and did quick shapes into 18-ounce balls.  


The balls were placed seam-side down into 12" pans that had been filled with about a quarter cup of olive oil.  After resting for about 30-40 minutes we started topping them with onions, peppers, olives, tomato, and herbs.  all in all, we made about 30-40 focaccia, and then cooked them over the next few hours 6 at a time in her oven.


The flavor was great -- but I think next time, we will cut back on the olive oil, significantly. 

photos: K. Labby