garlic | Around the World in 80 Bakes

Massive Fougasse

Am I attempting to elongate my around the world in 80 bakes challenge somewhat or am I just easily distracted? Perhaps I’ve exceeded my capacity for cake. Who knows. But it seems I’m having a dalliance with bread baking at the moment.

Mini Fougasse

I couldn’t let Fougasse pass by undocumented, as something I’ve baked and forgotten about disappearing into the reams of photo I’ve #justbaked on instagram. I had to tell you about them. I realise I’ve baked rather a lot of French things thus far from Tarte au citron, to baguettes so I’m not counting Fougasse as one of my around the world in 80 bakes. BUT they are deliciously simple, despite their extremely complicated and masterful appearance. I gleefully clapped my hands together upon opening the oven door to reveal perfectly formed bread fronds.

Homegrown Rosemary

You can flavour Fougasse with any herb that you like.I foraged some rosemary from a sandwich buffet that was only used for decoration for an hour and was binward bound. I couldn’t face such waste so pocketed it for baking, to put it to good use alongside rock salt, shallots and pebbles of pecorino cheese. Future Fougasse that I have planned in my head include, roast pepper and garlic; mint and feta; basil and chilli; chia and sesame seed. I’m also taking advantage of the Rosemary bush we’ve inherited in our new home.

I can’t stress enough how simple a dough it is. It’s a basic white dough that can be adapted to make 2 large fougasse or as I’ve made since, many small palm sized fougasse. An impressive side dish to whip out when friends come for tea which can be frozen and defrosted as required.

Proven and knocked back dough. Kneaded with rosemary and onions

As with most doughs mix the ingredients together to form a sticky dough. Knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. Place in a large bowl, cover with greased cling film and leave to prove for 1 hour until doubled in size.

Roll your dough to a palm leaf sized shape

Once proven, knock the dough back and knead in your chosen flavours. If using rosemary and onions chop them finely first and sautee the onions in a little oil Then divide your dough into 2 equal amounts (if making large fougasse) or 12 pieces (if making mini fougasse). Roll it out on a lightly floured bench to a thin rectangle about 5mm in depth and about 20cm x 25 cm. The onions will make the dough a little sticky and can be a little more tricky to slice through later on.

The first cut is the deepest

Then comes the fun bit. Pop your flat dough onto a lined and semolina sprinkled baking sheet. I like using a pizza cutter for my long slashes in the dough. You have to split the dough up the middle, cutting all the way through and gently encourage the dough to separate, so there’s a space (you can see the baking sheet underneath). Make one diagonal cut (1cm in from the edge so there is still some dough attached to hold your fougasse together) from one end of the dough to the other, leaving 1cm at the opposite end untouched.

Make 3 diagonal cuts at an angle from your central cut

Then to add the additional detail. Make 3 diagonal cuts, either side of the split, moving your blade back towards you, at an angle from your central cut. If you want to get all technical these cuts are made at about a 45 degree angle. Make sure you leave at least 1cm of dough un cut at either end so that your fougasse doesn’t fall apart. Don’t forget to encourage the cuts to widen, use your fingers and blade if you have to, to make some space. As your dough rises the gaps will disappear and so will your carefully cut design. (As demonstrated beautifully by my first slightly botched attempt below…)

Perhaps I should have separated the dough a little more before backing this one...

Perhaps I should have separated the dough a little more before baking this one…

Stud your fougasse with chunks of parmesan and any extra rosemary that you’ve saved for extra flavour. If making mini fougasse, repeat this until you’ve shaped all of your dough. Cover it with greased cling film and leave to prove for 20 minutes until puffed up.

Stud your Fougase with chunks of parmesan

Stud your Fougasse with chunks of parmesan

Bake your Fougasse in a pre heated oven at 220 degrees c for 13 – 15 minutes until golden brown. These are delicious served warm, with a rich tomatoey or pestoey pasta dish, but equally tasty served cool and enjoyed independently as a feast in the palm of your hand. They also freeze very well so you can save some for later, or bake it in advance.

Massive Fougasse

Things I used to make my Flavoursome Fougasse

500g strong white flour (or 250g strong white and 250g strong wholemeal flour)
7g instant yeast
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 TBS olive oil
300ml water

1. Knead dough together for 10 minutes. Cover and prove for 1 hour.

1 onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped

2. Sautee the onions and garlic in a little oil and allow to cool

3 stems of rosemary and a little extra for the final decoration

3. Chop the sprigs of rosemary finely

100g parmesan cheese cut broken into rough cubes for studding into the fougasse before final prove

4. Knead the onions, garlic and rosemary into the proven dough

5. Divide dough into 2 and roll into rectangles 20x25cm and 5 mm thick

6. Place on semolina sprinkled baking sheet and cut into the dough as described above. Studding with parmesan.

7. Cover and prove dough for final 20 minutes

8. Bake at 220 degrees C for 13 -15 minutes until golden brown and the parmesan cheese crisps up slightly.

Paul Hollywood’s Naan Bread

Rolling on to India and bake number 26! (All this baking is taking its toll! I’m now increading my exercise to 15 miles of walking a week, Ashtanga yoga and the occasional spin class/torture session.) But I love food and I love naan bread, particularly Peshwari Naan but then again who doesn’t love a good Naan? And not just any Naan bread but Paul Hollywood’s, the King of bread bakers, Naan bread?

Looking for the perfect accompaniment to my home made dahl and pilau rice I stumbled across the Paul Hollywood recipe I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Any excuse to whip out my trusty food processor too! I combined the flour, yeast, salt and oil and mixed it all up using the dough hook attachment, adding water until it became a good sticky dough.

The food processor alone was not enough to knead the dough properly and the food processor was about to leap off the worksurface with the sheer effort of spinning the dough. I had to admit defeat and resort to my own hands.

Shiny Happy People – Kneady Stuff

I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes on an oiled surface, to stop it sticking, which is so much easier than a floured surface. Until it was smooth and shiny and bounced back when pressed lightly. It’s times like these that I wish I was 2 inches taller so I didn’t have to knead the dough whilst teetering about on my tip toes to get the right force required!

Time to Prove

Whilst the dough proved under it’s oiled cling film covering I set to work on arranging my naan flavours. Paul Hollywood’s recipe called for caraway seeds and coriander. Unable to follow any recipe without substituting something or ad libbing somewhere, I decided to attempt a Peshwari Naan, guessing that I could throw some crushed garlic, spices (coriander, cumin and cardamom seeds), raisins and coconut into the mix and it would produce Peshwari Naan. Upon opening the cupboard I found dried fruit store severely depleted! My normal store cupboard staple, raisins, were nowhere to be found! (I forgot earlier in the week I bought an extra double amount to feed an entire litre of rum to for a very special future bake! All of my dried fruit is currently sitting patiently soaking up lashings of rum. All will be revealed soon!)

Naan Flavourings: Coconut, Garlic, Coriander, Cardamom Seeds and Cumin

Slightly disappointed I ploughed on with a combination of coconut, half a bulb of crushed garlic, dried coriander and cumin instead. Noting I must buy more dried fruit as soon as possible.

Risen to perfection

After about an hour of rising, (near the hot hob on the stove while I was cooking a chicken and vegetable dahl to encourage the dough to prove) the dough had doubled in size and was ready to be flavoured! I added the flavours a third at a time and kneaded them thoroughly through the dough.

Flavoured and divided

Once all the coconutty goodness was distributed evenly throughout the dough I rolled it into a fat sausage to chop it into quarters. Each quarter of dough should then be cut in half and flattened. Paul Hollywood is obviously a bit more of a perfectionist than me as he insists that a rolling pin is required to flatten the dough portions out. I can’t believe that people in India whip out a rolling pin at this point and so I decided to do all this flattening with my bare hands. Which did mean that my first attempt was more like a paperback novel than a fluffy, naan bread.

Stacks of semi flattened naan bread dough – must be flatter than this before hitting the pan!

I re-read the recipe and realised that the dough should be stretched into circles about 25cm in diameter, probably twice as big as my inital attempt! This explains the chunky naan brick that I produced.

Chunky Naan

Once flattened the dough has to be rested again for 5 minutes before plopping them (individually) into a hot pan with a splash of oil. I quite enjoyed the sizzle of the naan in the oil as the naan immediately puffed up and bubbled away happily in the pan. Then a quick flip over to sizzle it on the other side too. I was worried the coconut would all fall off as I got a bit bored whilst frying up the naans and decided to press some more coconut and coriander into the awaiting naan breads. I’m not sure if Paul Hollywood would approve of my inconsistent making-it-up-as-I-go-along approach but hey they were looking golden and lovely in the pan, so why worry about presentation and consistency now?!

Naan -ish and Golden (look at those bubbly edges!)

Once the naan is golden brown on both sides, it’s ready to hop out of the pan on onto a plate. I continued pan frying all 8 of the naans, piling them high on a plate ready to be devoured with daahl.

Stacks of Naan

Tea time! It smelt amazing, although a tad smokey in my kitchen as I definitely had the heat up too high on the pan. The windows had to be opened to get rid of the haze in order to see at one point. But other than my carelessness when it comes to fire safety, this recipe was a resounding success. I did slightly chargrill (burnt) one naan and created a naan brick, but I still had 6 more naans to get the technique right with. When I eventually got it right, I really got it right!

Chargrilled Naan

The bread was fluffy and light around the edges with thinner crispier bits towards the middle, where I had possibly been a bit over enthusiastic with my thinning process. I quite liked the texture and it was a good call to add an extra layer of coconut before frying the bread as it toasted on the top. Lovely! I’ve frozen the rest of the batch after we had eaten our share, to be defrosted in naan bread emergencies, of which I’m sure I will have many.

Tea Time! (The naan was so massive I couldn’t fit it all on the plate or in the photo…)

The recipe, just in case you would like to try it is…

500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
10g/¼oz salt
15g/½oz fresh yeast
30ml/1fl oz olive oil
water, to mix
1 tsp cumin seeds (I substituted this for – the crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods)
1 tsp caraway seeds (I used a generous 1 tsp of dried coriander and 1 tsp cumin)
I then added further to Paul’s recipe with 1/2 a cereal bowl of coconut (sorry its a very rough guestimate, my usual measurement unit)