So I was SUPER excited when Hamelman's book arrived in the mail last week...and couldn't wait to try something out of it. Since I love focaccia and it's been a while since I made it, I dove right in and went straight to his focaccia formula...which directs you to use his ciabatta formula and bake it in a cake pan coated with olive oil. Ok. That's new on me, but Jeffrey is the expert and I'm still learning. So I tried it. And what I ended up with looks a giant ciabatta (hmm...):
The crust is also crisper than most focaccia I've encountered to date. I *did* use a 9" cake pan instead of 10 because that's all I had, but is there something else going on here? Sorry...no picture of the crumb...it's still too hot to cut
You didn't put any toppings on it to weight it down. Your shape reminds me of the focaccia served at Macaroni Grill without the rosemary.
Makes sense...I kinda wondered about that (I brushed it with a bit of garlic infused EVO and sprinkled a bit of salt on it). That said...it really doesn't take much weight at all then, does it?
BUT...OMG does his formula taste AMAZING. It's got a soft, almost cake like crumb (a bit wider holes though not the super wide ones I expected at that hydration) and VERY creamy flavor. Overall I'm quite happy with it--and more importantly so is the family!
Besides the toppings, most recipes call for dimpling the dough. I know his does not for some reason. If you used garlic infused EVO then you should have dimpled it to incorporate it into the dough. Sounds delicious.
Dimpling is all you need to keep it flat. You can do a very nice focaccia without heavy toppings, just maybe a little salt or olive oil or rosemary.