Focaccia With Olives & Thyme

Photo: Tasty Trix

Ingredients

4 cups organic all purpose nonbleached white flour, such as King Arthur

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons yeast

13 1/2 ounces lukewarm water (around 100 degrees)

cornmeal

a handful of black oil cured olives, roughly chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

small handful flat leaf parsley, chopped

leaves from 4-5 sprigs of thyme

sprinkle of kosher salt

Preparation

Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients well.

Next, add water and mix with your hands. Have some extra flour standing by - you want the dough to be a little sticky, but no so sticky that it's adhering in big chunks to your hands. Whatever sticks to your fingers should be easy to get off, so if the dough is too wet slowly add more flour until it's right.

Knead the dough on a floured surface - adding more flour as necessary - for about 5 minutes until it's a neat, slightly sticky ball that doesn't want to adhere to your hands.

Place it back in the floured bowl, cover with a dishtowel and leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes to an hour, until it's doubled in size.

Oil a round or rectangular baking pan and scatter some cornmeal in the bottom.

Plop your dough in the middle (it will deflate, not a problem) and spread it out in the pan. It doesn't have to go the whole way to the edge, but it should be an even thickness.

Cover again, and let rise for one hour.

With a floured finger, poke little holes in the top of your loaf.

Next, combine the olive oil, garlic, parsley, olives and thyme and gently spoon on top of your focaccia.

Sprinkle some kosher salt on top and pop it in a 425 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Get the bread out of the baking pan, and make sure to have a piece while it's still warm and fragrant with yeast.