Focaccia

Directions

1. Put your kettle on, or boil some water however you do it.
2. Mill the grain into fine flour.
Prepare Dr. Mel's Quick No-Wait Yudane:
3. Place the yudane flour at the bottom of your mixing bowl, and pour the boiling water over it.
4. Quickly mix the flour and boiling water together into a paste.
5. Mixing the Bread:
6. Add the cold water to the mixing bowl, followed by the remaining ingredients. This allows the water to cool the yudane so it doesn't kill your yeast.
7. Knead with your dough hook until the dough looks smooth and shiny and fully cleans the bowl. This will vary greatly depending on the mixer you have. Mixers with bottom motors will need a rest between mixing so dough is not overheated OR the flour and the water must be very cold.
8. Preheat the oven to 450 F.
9. Transfer the dough onto a well-oiled half sheet pan, and let it rest a few minutes and relax the gluten.
10. Stretch the dough out across the pan, working gently so as to not de-gas the dough.
11. Let the dough double in size and get bubbly - generously top it with olive oil and poke your fingers into the dough to make indentations.
12. If you are adding toppings, sprinkle them on the dough and gently press them into the dough with the finger poke method.
Bake Prep:
13. Roll up a few ice cubes inside a tea towel. Soak the tea towel with hot water. Grab a few more ice cubes to throw into the bottom of the oven, and have a spray bottle of water handy.
Baking:
14. Place the pan into the oven. Place the hot, soaked towel next to it, toss ice cubes into the bottom of the oven and spray the focaccia quickly and heavily with water before closing the oven door.
15. Bake until the bread looks browned. Check the internal temperature of your bread with an instant read digital thermometer and bake until 190 F, ~15-20 minutes.
16. When bread has reached the ideal temperature, remove the pan from the oven.