I am working on baking a 96% hydration focaccia without having it stick to whatever I bake it on. So far I have tried using a copious amount of olive oil on a 1/4-sheet pan and putting down a sheet of parchment paper with butter on the pan and butter on the parchment (butter because it is a solid and is thus not so easily displaced by the dough during dough placement and proof). The parchment did not stick to the pan, but the dough stuck to the parchment in a few places - mostly toward the edge -making it difficult to remove the parchment from the focaccia.
One option is to just add more fat between the dough and the parchment. And I suppose I could brush the parchment with paraffin as a mold release agent as it would remain solid until it is in the oven but of course it leaves a layer of wax on the bottom crust which I would like to avoid.
I make very high hydration dough for both my
focaccia and pizza, same dough. I bake them either on my black Detroit steel pans with deep sides or on my stainless steel baking sheets . No matter which I use all I do to prep the pan is take a cold stick of butter and rub it over the surface. Never soft butter I use the cold stick.
I then plop the dough in the center and dimple to edges. If it resists, unlikely as it is very wet , I let it rest a minute and dimple more.
In the years I’ve been doing this I’ve never had anything stick on either kind of pan. The black steel were cured in the oven when I got them but the big baking sheets were purchased in 1975 and are still going strong. No coating on them.
I’ve always had dough stick to olive oil always . It’s the devil and doesn’t work in my experience. Parchment also is the devil for wet dough .
Hope this solves it for you. 🙏c
For loaf pans my pan release mix contains lecithin, coconut oil and brown rice flour. It has a fairly neutral flavour, is dairy free, and the grit from the brown rice flour is effective too in aiding release. Lecithin is a known release agent.
It works flawlessly without parchment for loaves and I can't see it causing issues with your focaccia either.
-Jon
Thanks Jon, nice tip. I wonder if I can replace the brown rice flour with corn flour or wheat bran. Never in my life I've seen brown rice, and black rice may lends unwanted dark color
Jay
In the link for the recipe I see that she says "rice flour (I use home-milled brown rice flour, but any will do)".
Hope it works for you,
Jon
When par baking high, to ultra high hydration Sicilian pizza base, I normally use vegetable shorting. Besides solving the sticky issue, this method also helps to keep the dough from bubbling up. For the final bake I use a good amount of olive 🫒 oil. This gives the finished product that fried in the pan quality. Anyway vegetable shorting is what works for me.
Kind regards,
Will F.
Mix vegetable oil and liquid lecithin in a jar. Mix/shake until all evenly distributed. Brush on pan. I have never had anything stick. Some people add flour. Actual recipe? Never had one. Maybe 4:1 (oil/lecithin). Flour? 1 tbsp per cup? enough to look very cloudy or sprinkle on after applying the oil/lecithin.
As for a release- I have used oatmeal flakes, cornmeal, bran, flour. They all work.