Rosemary Foccacia

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Total time: 4 ish hours, plus making the sponge the night before (which was super quick, but it needed to sit for at least six hours)

Source: Bread Illustrated

Serves: Depends how much you like bread. 8-12, probably?

It has been a while since I made real bread (because bread machine bread does not count). I sat down this weekend and found things that I had all of the equipment for and that sounded like they’d go well with what I was cooking, and this was the first one (and also the only one I haven’t made before).

Buut then I realized that I didn’t have all of the equipment. I have 8 inch cake pans, not 9 inch ones. So I tried to improvise and decided that my 9 inch springform pan and my 9 inch pie pan would be the best options. I was wrong. I should have gone with the smaller cake pans. Here are my reasons:

• The springform pan let all (most?) of the oil out, so the bottom didn’t crisp up like it was supposed to. I could have done a better job of leakproofing my pan, but I’d rather just use a cake pan.
• The pie pan let all of the oil burn off and wasn’t nonstick, so the loaf got super dark and I had to chisel it out of the pan.

Now, that’s not to say this wasn’t delicious bread. This was delicious bread. It was pretty easy (no kneading or anything) but needed my attention pretty often during the folding/rising time, so it’s definitely one I can only make when I’m just kind of hanging around the house for a bit. It made me very glad that my rosemary bush made it through the awful summer, and it worked quite well with tonight’s dinner tonight. We all had it as an afternoon snack and had more with dinner, and there’s a bit left, which I can’t wait to eat tomorrow.