Name: Focaccia con lievito madre/sourdough
Ingredients: 100 g White Sourdough Starter; 50 ml Lukewarm water; 50 g Strong White Flour; 175 ml Lukewarm water; 2 Tbsp Olive oil; 350 g Strong White Flour; 6 g Fine Sea Salt; 1 tsp Ground Sea salt; 1 tsp Olive oil; 80 ml Water; 80 ml Olive oil; Sea salt crystals; 2 Sprigs fresh rosemary (stem removed)

Focaccia con lievito madre/sourdough

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Cuisine Italian

Equipment

30cm x 20cm baking tray

Ingredients

The Leaven

100 g White Sourdough Starter
50 ml Lukewarm water
50 g Strong White Flour

Dough

175 ml Lukewarm water
2 Tbsp Olive oil
350 g Strong White Flour
6 g Fine Sea Salt

For the tray

1 tsp Ground Sea salt
1 tsp Olive oil

For the top

80 ml Water
80 ml Olive oil
Sea salt crystals
2 Sprigs fresh rosemary stem removed

Instructions

Setting the leaven:

Put the sourdough starter in the mixing bowl and add 50ml lukewarm water and 50g flour and mix thoroughly with a bakers whisk. Cover and leave to stand for 4 hours.

The Autolyse:

Add the remaining water to the leaven and mix well with a baker's whisk or a fork.
Add the flour, oil and salt and mix well with a spatula
Cover and leave to stand for 60 minutes.

Mixing the dough

Sprinkle salt on the surface. Wet your hand and squeeze the dough several times. You should feel the dough tighten. Cover and leave to stand for 60 minutes.
Stretch and fold the dough. Repeat the stretching and folding a further 3 time turning the bowl a quarter of the way round each time. Cover and leave for a further 60 minutes.
You can leave the bowl covered in the fridge overnight

Shaping in the tray

Prepare a baking tray by brushing liberally with olive oil and sprinkling salt all over the tray.
Empty the dough from the bowl on to the tray and flatten and spread as far to the sides of the tray as you can. Cover with a cloth.
After 15 minutes, stretch the dough again to cover to the sides of the tray. Cover with linen cloth and leave to rise for 3 hours.

Baking

Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C(fan oven)/gas 7
Press holes into the dough with your finger at regular intervals about 4 or 5 cm apart.
Brush the surface liberally with olive oil allowing some to settle in the holes. Sprinkle with the course sea salt.
Strip the rosemary leaves off the by pushing down the stem in the opposite direction of leaves. This should produce small clumps of 3 or 4 leaves each. Push the rosemary leaves into the holes and sprinkle any leftover over the surface. Cover with cloth until the oven is well heated to temperature.
Uncover the baking tray and place in the middle of the oven. Bake in the oven at for 23 minutes. The top should sound hollow when tapped with a utensil.
Remove from the tray and allow to cool on a cooling rack. Sprinkle Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the Focaccia before serving.

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