Herbed Wholemeal Focaccia

[Baked on 9 Mar 2013]
I haven't been baking bread for a long time. I wished I have more time to bake breads. Given a choice to bake, I'll go for breads! Unfortunately, baking bread takes a long floor time. Since I didn't do bread-baking planning, I wasn't able to make pre-fermented dough.  So I made an easier recipe. This is from "bake!". This focaccia bread is easy to make as it does not require much kneading, and the end result is holey and good. You may replace the wholemeal flour with plain flour or bread flour to get a softer bread.

Recipe for Herbed Wholemeal Focaccia, adapted from bake! by Nick Malgieri
(Makes a 11" x 9" loaf)

Ingredients:
120g Wholemeal flour
465g Bread flour
2 tsp Sea salt
7g Instant yeast
420g Warm water, about 43C
60g Olive oil
3 tsps Silician herb mix
A dash of Cayenne pepper

Some dried sage leaves
Some garlic chopped coarsely
Sea salt
Olive oil

Method:

1. Stir the flour and salt together and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the yeast into the water. Wait for 2 mins and whisk again to make sure the yeast is completely dissolved. Whisk in the oil.
3. Use a large rubber spatula to smoothly stir half the flour mixture into the liquid. Stir in the remaining flour mixture, using the spatula to dig up any unmoistened flour from the bottom of the bowl. Add in the herb mix and mix well.
4. After all the flour is moistened, use a dough hook to mix thoroughly, for approximately 5 mins. The dough will still be moist. 
5. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let the dough rise until it has doubled in size, about an hour.
6. Scrape the dough into the prepare baking tray. Use the flat palm of your hands to press the dough into the tray. Make sure the dough covers the entire base of the tray.
7. Let the dough rise for another 1 hour.
8. Once the focaccia is fully risen, use your index finger to dimple the top all over. Drizzle some olive oil over the surface, sprinkle sage leaves and chopped garlic, followed by sea salt.
9. Place the focaccia in the preheated oven of 200C and bake for about 25mins or until the top is browned.
10. Remove the focaccia from the tray after baking.
11. Cool completely before serving.