Apuglian Focaccia Soft Bread With Olives and Cherry Tomatoes

This focaccia, kind of greedy bread, is a typical Bari speciality from Puglia.

Is a focaccia, called usually "ruota di focaccia", because of it's round-shape.

It's a fluffy focaccia with olive oil, black olives, cherry tomatoes and origan...hard to resist.

It requires a little patience, but it gives great satisfaction.

I used manitoba flour for the pre-starter and whole wheat flour for the dough, but you can also use all-purpose flour if you don't have those type of flour.

This preparation does not require the use of bread or pasta machine.

Step 1: Step 1: Ingredient and Tools

Ingreients for people

You will need:

For the pre-starter (biga)

40 g of manitoba flour (1/3 cup)

3 cl of water (2tbsp)

3 g of fresh yeast (1/10 cube)

For the dough

pre-starter (biga)

500 g of whole wheat flour+a bit(3cups+1/3 cup)

15 g of fresh yeast

35 cl of water (1.5 cup)

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

Garnish

160 g pitted black olives

300 g cherry tomatoes

dried origan

Tools required

No particular tools are required I don't use pasta or bread maker, it's not difficult knead this bread by hand.

The only tools required is a plastic paddle, very useful for this soft dough.

Step 2: Step 2: Prepare the Pre-starter (Poolish)

To make this bread, you need to do a preparation in advance, is called "biga" (poolish), is better make it the day before.

For the biga usually I use Manitoba flour with an high percentage of protein, but you can also use an all-purpose flour.

Put the flour in a small bowl, in the center pour water and yeast, with your fingers dilute yeast in the water and then mix with the flour. The biga is ready and should be left to rest between 18 and 24 hours.

It should be covered but not sealed, so I don't use plastic wrap, but simply a lid.

So let the pre-starter rest and grow for 18-24 hours.

Step 3: Step 3: Prepare the Bread Dough

The day after.

For the first thing put the pre-starter in a bowl, the we add a portion of the water and then the brewer's yeast should be dissolved. When is completely dissolved, we mix eveything together with the pre-starter, squeezing with our fingers.

Then we add a portion of the flour, the salt and the olive oil.

At this point we begin to stir with our hand, shaping it into kind of a spatula, then I pick up a portion of the batter, raise it up and drop it back down again in the center, this way it absorb more air.

Add the remaining flour and water, continue beating for 10 minutes until the batter detach from the bowl wall.

We pour some olive oil in a bowl and we put in the dough in a ball shape, we cover the bowl with a damp rag.

This need to ferment and should rest for about half an hour.

Step 4: Step 4: Prepare Olives Anche Cherry Tomatoes

If your olives are not pitted, you can easily remove the kernel in this way:

with the flat bottom of a cup or a glass crush the olives on the cutting board or on a flat surface, the olive kernel will come off easily.

Wash well the cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

Step 5: Step 4: Shape the Bread

Now remove the batter from the bowl and turn upside down onto the table onto which you have to put a bit of flour, add some flour on the top of the dough.

Fold the batter in half for 3 or 4 times, for make it more elastic and then make a ball.

Grease and flour a round mold (25-30 cm diameter), put inside the dough and gently press for stick it in the mold.

Let it rest and rise for 2 hours (it will redouble his volume) covered with a damp rag.