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These are the ingredients.
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Combine the bread and cake flours, yeast, salt and sugar in a bowl.
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Add lukewarm water.
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Start by mixing it in with cooking chopsticks or something, then switch to folding the dough with your hands.
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When the dough is more or less mixed, add the olive oil.
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Knead to incorporate the flour in the bowl.
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Take the dough out onto a work surface and knead and stretch for about 10 minutes.
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Ideally you want the dough to form a thin, translucent film when stretched (as they say often in cookbooks), but you don't have to knead it that long really.
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Round the dough off into a ball with a smooth, taut surface.
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This is how the dough looks before the 1st rising.
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(Put the dough on the lid of a large storage container, and invert the container over the dough.
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Leave it to rise.)
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After about an hour.
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(The measuring cup full of hot water is there to maintain the temperature.)
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Today I just divided the dough into 4 pieces.
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Usually I divide it into 5 to 6 pieces, which may be easier to bake.
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Round off each piece of dough into a ball with a smooth surface.
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This dough doesn't need to be rested much.
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Once each piece is formed into a smooth ball, go to the next step.
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Flour your hands before pressing each dough ball flat.
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Use the weight of the dough itself to help stretch it out.
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Make the edges a bit thicker than the middle.
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This is a better way to stretch the dough than rolling it out with a rolling pin--the dough is puffier this way.
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Line a baking tray with parchment paper and put the dough on top.
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Go on to the 2nd rising.
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Put the whole baking tray in a plastic bag or something to proof.
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In the meantime, preheat the oven to 230C.
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If you have an electric oven, set it to the highest setting.
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The dough will become puffy in about 30 minutes.
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Top with olive oil and coarse rock salt and so on.
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Add rosemary or other herbs to taste.
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It depends on your oven, but basically just bake at 230C for 3 to 5 minutes until lightly browned, and it's done.
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The surface is soft too, not hard.
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For a cinnamon flavored version, top with butter before baking, and sprinkle with granulated sugar and cinnamon powder.
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Spread on pizza sauce, top with cheese, and you have a simple pizza.
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Here are some plain round buns made with the same dough.
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Variation: Salad pizza!
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I put an arugula and cured ham salad on top of a baked focaccia, with mayonnaise diluted with yogurt.
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Variation: Light pizza!
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No tomato sauce, topped with bacon and sliced bell peppers, mozzarella cheese and olive oil.
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Variation: Dessert pizza!
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Sprinkle cinnamon powder on sliced banana and bake.
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Add lots of chocolate sauce to finish.
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Once the foccacia have cooled, wrap up any that you won't eat right away and store in the refrigerator or freezer.
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Mist with water and warm in a toaster oven before eating.
