Provençal Olive Fougasse

French Friday with Dorie

When I read the intro to this week's recipe, I was intrigued when Dorie said that the fougasse is not a solid loaf of bread because holes are made into it and the bread is often oddly shaped, called pains fantaisies or fantasy bread. This alone made me want to make it. I have never made this kind of bread before and really looked to the photo in the book as a guide.

Having looked for olives packed in oil for another Dorie recipe, I knew they weren't going to be easy to find. I live in California where olives are abundant, but are packed in water. I found another jar of oil cured olives, however, at World Market, but this time they were from Provençal. Perfect!

I decided to make only one loaf and halved the recipe. I had another moment like last week where I forgot completely what I just read and didn't add the extra cup of water and olive oil until after I had already started mixing the flour and yeast mixtures. Sheesh! It turned out that this dough was forgiving though because it came together fairly well.

Since it had been a warm day (90 degrees!) I let it rise covered on the counter for about 2-1/2 hours before stirring it and putting it in the refrigerator to rest. When I got off work the next day I took it out and rolled it out a little on a floured surface and used my pizza cutter to make some cuts in the dough and gently pulled the slashes apart to make holes. I brushed the water and olive oil mixture on the top and sprinkled liberally with kosher salt.

I baked the bread on a silicone-lined baking sheet for 10 minutes and rotated the pan and baked for another 10 minutes. While this was baking you could smell the fragrant rosemary and I couldn't wait to try a piece. I let it cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before taking it outside where my husband and daughter were working out in the yard.

For me, it was like eating a very flavorful pretzel. All it needed was some mustard. I really liked it and so did my daughter, but John, the one who will eat an entire jar of olives at one sitting was on the fence about this and all he would say was, "I'm not sure..." Later he said that he didn't like the flavor combination - something was a little too much, but he wasn't sure what it was. The dough has a little bit of lemon zest and minced rosemary, in addition to the olives. I looked at the jar of olives and they were packed with thyme, so I am wondering if the rosemary, thyme, and lemon combination was what he didn't like.  I liked it so much that I took a large chunk to work the next day to eat as a snack.

I will totally make this again and experiment with the shapes and flavor combinations. This was one of the most enjoyable breads to make. Check out French Fridays with Dorie to see what the rest of the group thought about their bread.