Mrs Bailey’s Focaccia

Mrs Bailey’s Advent Calendar, Day 2

Photo by Paula Berto on Unsplash

The Crater School kitchens turn out these flattish, dimpled loaves by the dozen, on an almost daily basis. Mrs B developed this particular recipe to be easy and quick for her kitchenmaids to learn, and to take up as little of their time as possible. Their time is her time, as she likes to tell them, and she uses it unstintingly. Here, though, it’s the yeast that does the work; pretty much all the baker has to do is mix the ingredients and leave them to get on with it.

600g bread flour

20g honey

16g salt

10g yeast

625g water

olive oil

Seasoning salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, until you have a shaggy dough and no dry flour. Cover, and leave it to prove. (You can take it to the next stage as soon as it’s doubled in size, which may be in as little as an hour if your kitchen is warm; if you leave it longer, it will take no hurt and develop more flavour. Four hours is fine. Or put it in the fridge and leave it till the morning, then bring it up to room temperature before continuing. It’s all good.)

[Edited to add: I’ve taken to adding 150g of sourdough discard, just for flavour, and to avoid waste…