Week Six: Fougasse

I was planning on making a Mojito meringue pie for botanical week, but I just didn't have time!  Ended up making fougasse instead, as it is my neighbour's favourite bread - and I've heard it makes a great cinema snack ;)

I used Paul Hollywood's recipe - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fresh_herb_fougasse_70351 

Ingredients

• 500g/1lb 2oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting 
• 10g/¼ fine salt
• 7g sachet instant yeast
• 2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing and drizzling 
• 350ml/12fl oz warm water 
• 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary, plus extra to finish 
• 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
• 2 tsp chopped fresh sage
• fine semolina, for dusting 
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• sea salt flakes, crushed, to finish

Method

Step One: Make the Dough

Put the flour salt and yeast in the bowl of your free-standing electric mixer with a dough hook.  Make sure the salt and yeast are on opposite sides of the bowl.  (If you don't have an electric mixer, you can always knead by hand)  Add the olive oil and 3/4 of the water and begin to mix on a low speed.  As the dough comes together, add the rest of the water and continue mixing for about 8 minutes.  Add the herbs (as usual, I did not have all the herbs and couldn't be bothered to go shopping!  I used herbs from my garden)  Mix for a minute or two until the herbs are evenly spread through the dough and the dough is stretchy and elastic.  Oil a large bowl and tip the dough in.  Turn the dough over (so the oiled side is up) and cover the bowl with clingfilm - if the oily side is up, then the clingfilm will not stick to the dough.  Leave to rise until doubled in size - at least an hour.  

Step Two: Shape the Dough

Paul says to dust your work surface with white flour and semolina.  As you've probably guessed, I did not have semolina, so I just used white flour - it was fine.  Tip out the dough and split in half.  Lift each half onto a baking tray and shape into an oval.  Paul suggests using baking paper underneath each 'loaf' but I had run out so I sprayed my trays with olive oil and dusted them lightly with flour.  Use a pizza cutter to cut slashes into the dough - there are lots of different designs.  You can see my one in the picture below.  After you've slashed the dough, stretch it out very slightly, or the holes will close whilst baking.  If you have large plastic proving bags, place your bread inside.  I didn't, so I sprayed cling film with olive oil and laid that on top of my bread.  Prove for another 20 minutes and preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan).

Step Three: Bake the Dough

Make sure the oven is heated to 220C (200C fan).  Spray some olive oil over the top of each loaf and bake for 15-20 minutes.  It will sound hollow if it's ready when you tap it.  Remove from the oven, brush with more olive oil and sprinkle with the sea salt.  Eat immediately!

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My score: 5/5 Easy peasy simple pimple!  Absolutely delicious and the easiest bread I have ever made.  Makes soup and bread a meal fit for a Queen.  You do need to be in the house most of the day because of timings and proving etc but it's a lovely recipe to do while you're getting on with other things because it only requires about 20 minutes of actual action.

Julia's Top Tips

• Don't worry if you don't have all the correct ingredients or equipment - improvise!  The must haves are proper strong bread flour and yeast, otherwise it will not work.
• Experiment with different flavours - I think sundried tomato would be gorgeous, or cheese, or maybe even a sweet one like chocolate and caramel!
• A great beginner's bread if you've never made bread before.

Keeeeeeeep baking!