Focaccia and steam

As a professional bread baker, one of he most common questions I get is why can't I get a good crust on my bread at home?
 The answer is simple, you don't have a steam injected oven.
The solution is a bit trickier, but still quite simple.

 You are going to create steam by placing 2-3 ice cubes in a pie tin or something similar for the first part of your baking cycle. The ice cubes will melt and as they evaporate they will produce steam. Why is steam important you ask? Steam is what forms the beautiful crust on the bread, it also gives it a final oven spring which helps produce the crumb, or the little holes inside the bread. Some say the crust is what defines a great loaf of bread...you need steam for that. This is one of my favorite easiest most delicious bread recipes.


 FOCACCIA
 Poolish:
 500g bread flour
500g warm water (85*)
 5g active dry yeast


 BREAD
 1440g bread flour
 1090g water
 115g olive oil
10g yeast
 37g salt
 1005g poolish (all of it)

 Mix the poolish 12-18 hours before you are ready to mix the bread. You want the container to be at least double in size and I like to place a bowl under it while it sits overnight just incase it gets too warm and becomes very active. Remember, yeast is a living thing, you have just activated it by rehydrating it, now we need to keep it nurtured with the correct time and temperature (I say 12-18 hours, the right time frame for you is based on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen. If you live in Florida and it's august the humidity is high so your going to want to stick to the 12 hours, maybe even 10, but if your in California where it's warm but with relatively no humidity your going to want to go with a 15 hour poolish. (hint: if you need to slow down your poolish it can sit in the refrigerator for a few hours.

 You will know your poolish is read when it begins to fall in on itself a bit. And is full of life and bubbles. When your ready to mix you need a large bowl or container. Again the bread is alive and is going to be very wet and at least double in size.
Place your water in the bowl and add your poolish. Your going to mix the poolish with the water. I recommend literally squishing the poolish and water between my fingers. Your not going to get the same result if you wear gloves or use a spoon, but it can be done. ( this is great to do with kids)
then add you flour, olive oil, salt and yeast on separate ends of the bowl. (salt kills the dry yeast and cannot come in contact with it until the is water for it to hydrate themselves.)
 At this point you are going to mix your bread dough. It should be very wet. I mix it with my hands working my way around the bowl folding the dough over itself. It's not gong to get much structure but after about 5 min of folding the dough onto itself, you should see strands starting to stretch. This is your cue that your bread is mixed and is ready to rest.
 Let the dough rest for 45 min, give it a 4 fold, (imagine the bowl a four sided box, each side of the box needs to be folded to the middle)
 Let the dough rest for another 30 min
 It's time to get our dough into sheet pans. The recipe here makes about 2 half sheet pans of Focaccia, you can find half sheet pans in most foodie stores, and they fit in most kitchen ovens.
 Put a thin layer of olive oil on the sheet pan, enough to cover the whole thing, don't want your Focaccia sticking to the bottom of the pan, but too much and it will spill over onto your oven and make a smokey mess. Divide the dough into two, careful not to fold it over onto itself.
 And place in the sheet pans.
Pour enough olive oil on top to coat the top and "dimple" the bread. Imagine your hands like you are going to play the piano and make dimples in the bread, being careful not to go all the way to the bottom through to the pan.
 Let the bread sit for 30-45 min. You should see bubbles formed under the skin, and it should look alive. Your oven should be at 400*F
 Before you bake your bread you need to top it,you can be simple and just add sea salt, or salt, rosemary, and red pepper flakes,roasted red peppers, dried tomatoes, the possibilities are endless, have fun with it. Place your bread in the oven
 Place the pie tin with 2-3 ice cubes in the oven and get the door shut as quick as you can. You need lots of heat in the beginning and need to hustle to get the bread in and the door closed.
Keep the oven door closed until you begin to see browning, at this point open the oven door, careful there still may be steam in there and get all that steam out, maybe 30 seconds.
 Close the oven door and finish your bake till desired browness. You are looking for an even brown color. You may need to make this recipe more than once to perfect it, so practice before your dinner party. Nothing worse than doing all this work and realizing you didn't cook it long enough, or didn't put enough olive oil down and it stuck. 
If you have questions or need something explained in more detail, please ask.
Until next time, HAPPY BAKING!!