I'm not here to explain why, just to report results. I had not made
any bread for a very long time so I decided it was time to get back
at it. I wanted to make a good focaccia so we could make some great
Paninni sandwiches. Really like the one's at Panera's but they are
over an hour away.
So here's what I did. I started with the pain a l'ancienne recipe
but I use more water for the focaccia. In this batch it was 30 oz of
cold water but the rest of the recipe was as printed. This gives a
dough that is better described as a batter. You can't possibly
"handle" it. I had made this once before in the 11" X 17" sheet pan
and it worked great. This time I wanted 4 individual breads so I
used four 8" round cake pans. Two were the regular aluminum cake
pans the other two were Hefty 8" aluminum disposables from Wal-Mart.
I know Peter R says to use parchment in the bottoms but I figured I
had put so much herbed olive oil in the pan that I could skip the
parchment. That's the first lesson learned - pay attention to
Peter! Now, here's the odd part. I baked the first two regular cake
pans at the same time and when they came out the focaccia was
HOPELESSLY stuck to the pan. Now the two disposable pans were
already full of dough/batter. I figure I might as well bake them and
I can just peel the pans off. When these pans came out, the
focaccia just fell out of the pan. No sticking, no fuss. It may be
that those pans are made of the new no stick aluminum. The second
lesson learned - I'm using the disposable pans from Wal-Mart from now on!
Later, rich-in-nc