Rosemary, Basil, And Thyme Bread With Olive Oil

I’m not going to lie-this is a very difficult bread to make unless you are an experienced baker. It is so sticky and wet, that without months or years of handling super-hydrated dough, it would become difficult for a novice bread baker to understand what to do with it. I’m making a point of saying so at the outset so that no one will be standing in their kitchen, hands covered in globs of wet dough, cursing me. If you’re patient, it will eventually firm up after a couple folds on a floured board, but it also helps to have had the experience of knowing how wet dough handles.

The bread is very airy inside, with an open crumb and a crisp outer crust. It is not chewy in the way a focaccia is. I suspect that omitting the olive oil would help with that, though for what I had in mind with tonight’s dinner, the bread was perfect. A bit too perfect, I think, as I ate ¼ loaf myself.

You Will Need:

For the preferment:

¼ teaspoon instant yeast dissolved in 1 ¼ cups water
½ tablespoon salt
3 ½ cups white bread flour (I use Dakota Maid, from North Dakota Mills)

Mix together in a large bowl until hydrated. Cover with plastic and leave 4 hours.

For the dough:

4 cups bread flour
1 ¼ cups water
¼ cup olive oil
½ tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon instant yeast
herbs (I used 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, and 1 tablespoon dried basil) I’ll leave the amounts and combinations to your tastes.

Combine everything except the preferment in a bowl. Slowly, a bit at a time, add the preferment. When dough comes together, dump out onto a work surface dusted well with flour and work the dough until gluten strands begin to form. This will take some doing, but try to keep the dough as wet as possible and resist the temptation to add more flour. You may literally need to pour the dough back into the bowl, which is ok.

Let rise 1 hour. Remove from bowl and place on a floured surface. Gently de-gas and fold in three’s (like an envelope) and then turn and do so from the short end. Dust offr the flour after each fold. Return to bowl for another hour. Repeat folding. Let rise 30 minutes more.

Divide dough into two and let rest 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal and shape the breads (I did mine in football shaped loaves)

Cover and let rise 1 ¼-1 ½ hours or until just about (but not quite) doubled. Halfway through last rise, begin pre-heating the oven to 450 degrees F.

On the bottom shelf, place an old roasting pan to pre-heat with the oven. I create steam by tossing in 2 cups of water before loading the bread, but check your oven manual before doing this as I’m not gonna be responsible for anyone’s exploding oven but my own. If you have an exposed light bulb in the oven, you might want to remove it. Some people have good luck with a spray bottle as well. At any rate, create steam, load the bread and let bake 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, rotate the baking sheet and set for another ten minutes. At this point start checking the internal temperature of the bread-it is done when it reads 200 degrees F.

Cool on racks.