Foccacia di Recco - 58%, 62% and 65% hydration (front to back) - June 26, 2017
I actually thought about calling this knead, knead, knead, cry - but since it was an experiment in hydration I tried to make the title more appropriate (but my arms are still killing me!). My assignment was to make the Foccacia di Recco in the three hydration levels while keeping the flour, oil, salt (and cheese stuffing) the same. The assignment was also to aggressively hand-knead each dough for 10 minutes... I should not have made all three doughs back-to-back, especially as a novice, but hey I earned my eats!
The three doughs looked and felt very, very different - and the end results were also completely distinct in texture.
58% hydration
Obviously the driest dough - it took the most muscle to knead, and roll. It never felt as smooth as the others, and weighed 2 grams less than the next dough. Even rolling it in to a ball to cut in half you could see the creases and it just was the ugly duckling of the lot.
When done it was slightly more pale than the others, had a more crumbly texture, and just tasted dry. The dogs sniffed it and walked away - no, just kidding, they would have run away with it in a second given a chance! The non-student me would have eaten the whole thing and said "yum" but never made it again. The student me said "I can do better" and went on to...
62% hydration
This was pretty fabulous (read as: there is not a crumb left), it was a lovely dough to knead if there is such a thing! It was smooth, soft, and pliable. It didn't stick to my hands, didn't take too long to incorporate all the flour in to, and was a shiny round ball of dough that cried to be baked.
It had a perfect tiny crunch to the top, while not falling apart in your hands, the filling was just right, and it made me want to knead a triple batch and eat myself into a Foccacia coma. Buttery flaky crust, around gooey flavorful cheese - I'm in!
65% hydration
It was easy to knead for the last few minutes, but initially was sticking to my fingers, the counter, the bowl, everything around it (I actually had to make this one twice, the first time it got ahold of my shirt, picked off the dog hairs from it and disaster ensued, so I started over). It was shiny and pretty and I had high hopes for this being the best of them.
In my opinion it still looked the best, golden and bubbly, like a perfectly toasted marshmallow - but although good, it didn't beat the second one! I was surprised! It had a slightly denser tone to it which made the cheese almost hard to distinguish from the center dough, and gave it more of one texture than a crust with a filling (don't get me wrong, we still ate this one!), so it just got edged out. Good, but not good enough.
Hopefully that will not be my feedback from TBW as I march onward to Lesson Three!
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Nice, Nicest, Nice
Interesting that bubble density seems proportional to hydration. Probably related to dough stiffness in some way.
I was wondering about those strange lumps in the dough. Cool!