French Fridays With Dorie: Provencial Oilve Fougasse

HUBBY COMMENTED THAT THIS IS CONTAGIOUS--FUN AND FLAVORFUL

I should bake this Provencal Olive Fougasse again because now I know how I want it to turn out.

SOFT, STICKY DOUGH IS NOT MUCH THICKER THAN A BATTER

My fougasse was fun to make and delicious to eat, but it was not a beautiful rustic leaf.  My batter dough was obviously too soft even though I added an extra almost ½ cup of flour and maybe more if I count the rolling out flour addition.  My dough was to soft and sticky to roll out so I stretched it.  This was fine until I needed to move it to the baking sheets...way too soft.  It stretched to fit the entire pan.  Dorie wrote that “the dough will be very soft and sticky almost like a batter, and it will pool at the bottom of the bowl, but that’s fine.”

WHEN I LIFTED THE DOUGH TO MY PAN IT S-T-R-E-A-T-C-H-E-D

Well, my soft and sticky dough produced a fougasse that did not resemble Dorie's picture...my dough obviously needed another cup of flour to keep a shape.  I guess mine was TOO soft and sticky.
 

IT BAKED OK...BUT HAS AN EXTRA RUSTIC LOOK

Hubby and I both liked the flavor and texture of the olives; the other flavors were very subtle and overpowered by the olives and the salt.

Since most of us have acquired several lovely salts through our projects, I chose to use a Hawaiian white silver sea salt which glistened in the plentiful AZ sunlight.  This bread along with a simple salad were used as a relaxing on-the-patio snack.

Hubby, being from Pennsylvania and loving the PA Dutch foods, such as salty pretzels, loves to dip his salted breads in mustard like they do...so we followed suit, and also dipped this salted bread in mustard.

Even though I complain about my bread’s shapelessness, it was so tasty that I ate almost an entire baking sheet of this bread all by myself.  Hubby left for a bike ride so that he would stop eating.

Hubby was my only taster this time and besides liking this bread he also commented that they, meaning the French, like to put interesting items into their foods...I’m sure he meant olives in the bread.  I have used olives in breads in the past, but those breads have been more the artisan loaf style, making this was a different and interesting baking experience for me.  I think Dorie is right, this would be a fun picnic bread and with cheese it could make a meal.

HUBBY IS RIGHT, THIS FOUGASSE IS CONTAGIOUS

Hope your fougasse kept its leaf shape better than mine.  I’m interested to see how your baking projects fared.

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY to every woman out there who does mothering of any kind!!!!!!!!!!!!