Sourdough No-Knead Focaccia

Presenting our sourdough no-knead foccacia!

No knead bread has been making the rounds all over the ‘net, blogs and otherwise, since the Jim Lahey story and video appeared in the New York Times back in November ‘06. Do a google search for “no knead bread” and you’ll see what I mean. Of course, bread enthusiasts, and especially sourdough enthusiasts, have known the benefits of “letting time do the work”. When working with sourdough you really don’t have much choice anyway. The starter does the work for you. You just have to wait for it!

My starter has been happily growing for six months now, so I’ve also begun to get to know its moods and temperament quite well. Though by no means an expert yet in sourdough baking — I still have a couple hundred loaves to get under my belt — I am starting to get the hang of knowing when bread made with it is “good to go”. It also helps that people have blazed the trail before, so all I need to do is follow.

This plain foccacia is an adaptation… of sourdough expert Ed Wood’s excellent adaptation (LOL) of no knead bread. I didn’t make any changes at all to his ingredient list.

I took the starter out of the refrigerator at 9 pm, let it come to room temperature until 10 pm or so, added the rest of the ingredients, mixed a bit with my hand in the bowl just until incorporated. I covered the bowl and left it overnight in my oven with the pilot light on (it was getting down to the 50’s that evening and I didn’t want the colder temps to affect rise). If you have a naturally warm kitchen this step would be unnecessary. After about 13 hours or so, the dough had doubled beautifully (I should have taken a picture!), was smooth on the outside with tell-tale giant bubbles here and there. I dumped the whole thing into my greased skillet and marveled at the network of gluten strands produced overnight.

As you can see, what I did do differently is to let the bread make its final rise in a 12-inch Lodge cast iron skillet, and bake it, covered (there are 2 notches in the side of the skillet, so it’s not airtight) at 450 degrees F for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

The crust was awesomely crackly, though the bread’s bottom was a bit too brown. Still made for great eating! Next time I’ll use part whole wheat flour, maybe add some wheat bran, flavor it with olive oil and rosemary, and turn it into a panini sandwich when it’s done. Grilled vegetables and some melted cheese would be just the thing for a yummy filling, don’t you think?