Fougasse
2 hours 30 min. Recipe Yield:
6 pcs Difficulty:
Medium recipe
Fugasse - a recipe for French cuisine, fougasse is a very ancient type of bread, however, initially it was not exactly this shape, but somewhat resembled focaccho. And the name of these two types of bread comes from the Latin “focus”, which means hearth, as the bread was baked in a wood-burning oven under hot embers. To this day, bread baked in a wood-fired oven is considered the most delicious. To get a little closer to this taste, sprinkle the bread with cornmeal before baking - it will give the bread a golden hue, as if the fougasse was baked in a wood-fired oven.
Recipe Ingredients
Cooking Recipe
To cook a recipe of French cuisine fougasse, sift the flour and mix with salt. Next, grind fresh (live) yeast with flour into crumbs, if you use dry yeast, they must be dissolved in a small amount of water, and then rubbed into flour as well.
There is a lot of controversy about water - what temperature it should be added to yeast dough. Not icy and not hot, but it is best to use water at room temperature, then you can’t go wrong. Taste the water with your finger - if you can't hear it warm or cold, this is just what you need. Pour water into the flour with yeast and, twisting the bowl, mix, while rubbing the dough along the walls.
Next, put the dough on a kneading board and literally rub the dough over the surface with both hands, it doesn’t look very beautiful, but it’s only good for the dough.
Collect the dough in a lump and continue kneading or even beating. Slightly stretch the dough for the fougasse and with a strong blow, lower one edge of the dough to the surface, and cover the dough with the other edge like a hood. Knead the dough for the land mine in this way for 15 minutes.
With each kneading, the dough will become smoother and, oddly enough, will stick to your hands less. You do not need to add flour at this stage of kneading, the only thing that can be done is to wash your hands at 5-7 minutes of kneading and continue kneading with wet hands.
When the dough is completely kneaded, it becomes smooth and beautiful, put it in a bowl, cover with a film or towel and set aside for 1-1.5 hours to approach. In order for the dough to come up, there should be no draft in the room where it will fit. If you need the dough to come up faster, you can put it in an oven preheated to 30-40°C (85-105°F) for 30-60 minutes.
Place the risen dough on a floured surface, knead lightly, and then shape into a ball. Divide the ball with a scraper or knife in half into two parts. Divide each part into 3 more parts, in total you should get 6 parts, respectively, as a result, 6 fougasses will come out.
Each part of the dough now needs to be given the appropriate form of a fougasse - a leaf. With a knife, make deep cuts, cutting through the dough. How to make cuts? One cut in the middle - it is the longest, and then make 2-3 more cuts on both sides of the long cut. Spread each cut with your fingers so that the dough does not converge at the cut points. Before cutting the dough, you can sprinkle with cornmeal, but this is optional. After the dough is formed, put it on a baking sheet and place in an oven preheated to 230-250°C (450-480°F) and bake for 12-15 minutes. fougasse temperature and baking time depends on the oven.