Forget You (TwD BwJ: Foccacia)

I think that most of us have a "forget you" story or two over the years.

Like the time your dad forgot to pick you up from a friend's house on a Saturday morning.

Or the time you were drove half way to work and realized that you still have a kid in the back seat chattering away at you.

Or that one time when you forgot to turn the timer on while a batch of cookies is in the oven.

Or when you belatedly remembered that batch of dough that was supposed to rise in a warm place for a hour or so - ten hours later.

Yes, forgetting is a normal part of being human. As much as we (and by "we", I mean "I") would all like to be perfect and have things under control every moment of every day, it's just not going to happen.

Now, you probably thought that this was going to tie-in to a story of how I forgot my foccacia and ended up with a bizarre kitchen nightmare. Alas, there is no such tragically mirthful tale forthcoming.

The "forget you" tie-in is a little complicated than that. For some odd reason, my youngest calls foccacia "forget-you-bread". I don't understand why, but she does. It's just that simple.

Foccacia shows up pretty regularly in this house - so I wasn't too stressed going in to this one.

I made half of the recipe and followed about half of the directions - I used the flat beater instead of a dough hook; only refrigerated it for about 8 of the 24-36 hours; and instead of the final shaping steps, I let the dough finish rising in a 9 x 13 pan that had been drizzled in olive oil. Instead of slashing the dough, I dimpled it and drizzled it with a little more olive oil, some preserved garlic cloves and black lava salt.

Following directions is apparently not my specialty -in case you haven't picked up on that yet.

In spite of all the deviations, the end result was a crunchy crust topped by a light and chewy crumb. It was scarfed down in one sitting.

Game. Set. Match.

Frankly, I needed this one to be a gimme - I have a gut feeling the Boca Negra is going to cause me some headaches - or heartaches. Check back in a couple weeks to see how it all turns out...

This post participates in Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia. The recipe for foccacia can be found at the site of this week's host, Sharmini of Wandering Through.