Today, Bon Appétit joins Chef Kelly Mencin, owner of NYC’s Radio Bakery, to make focaccia. Radio Bakery is one of New York’s hottest bakeries and was named one of the best in America by The New York Times.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Kelly Menson, the chef-owner of Radio Bakery in New York City, and today we are
00:08going to make my perfect version of focaccia.
00:13We were just named by the New York Times one of the best bakeries in the United States.
00:17One of our specialties is focaccia.
00:20Focaccia is typically an airy, chewy, flat-ish loaf of bread.
00:25Thin crust, dark on the bottom, maybe a little bit oily, and can be eaten by itself or filled
00:32or topped.
00:33We're going to make our sausage and chive focaccia.
00:35It's a three-day process for us here.
00:37The first day we make the starter.
00:39The second day it gets mixed, proved, then put in the walk-in, and then the third day
00:44it gets proved again and then baked.
00:46First thing we're going to do is mix our levain.
00:50A levain is an offshoot of your starter.
00:53A sourdough starter is just flour and water.
00:56It's what develops flavor and microbes and yeast.
01:00It eventually becomes active, and that is what's going to help leaven our bread.
01:06We're going to use about 60 degrees Fahrenheit water because we want our levain to sit overnight,
01:12room temp.
01:13We want to keep it super cold.
01:14We're going to do water first in the mixer so that none of the flour clumps up.
01:19All right.
01:20You can mix levain easily by hand, but we're making such a large batch that we're going
01:24to do it in the mixer.
01:25If you can't make a starter, a lot of bakeries will give you a little bit of their starter
01:30that you can just use to create your own levain.
01:33Now we're making a video, and I cannot have 20 people coming in here on a daily basis.
01:37I urge you to reach out to your other local bakeries and see if they can give you a little
01:41bit of their starter.
01:42Then we're going to scale out our flours.
01:45We use King Arthur's Special Patent bread flour for this dough because it's super high
01:49in protein.
01:50It's about 14%, and it's really consistent.
01:54For focaccia, we want high gluten.
01:57We want chewy, and we want the bread to be able to really expand.
02:02That's what high-protein bread flour allows us to do.
02:05Whole wheat and other specialty flours is what gives different breads its distinct flavor.
02:11Whole wheat flour also helps aid in the fermentation of our levain.
02:15Rule of thumb is the more whole wheat, the more whole-grain flours you have in your bread
02:20or your levain, the faster it's going to ferment.
02:23Now we're going to go into our mixer.
02:26We're going to let that mix.
02:28You can see it's nice and smooth.
02:31There's no dry lumps of flour.
02:33So this is the amount of levain for like 40 focaccias for tomorrow.
02:37I'm going to pull a little bit out of it for the focaccia that we're going to make in a
02:40little bit.
02:41But I'm doing production for my team.
02:45So we are going to put this in our big Cambros.
02:49This is going to grow double in size, so you do want enough room in your container.
02:55And now I'm going to show you how to autolyse the dough.
02:59So we mixed our levain earlier in the day.
03:02He's been sitting at room temp, getting nice and active.
03:05Now we're going to start mixing our dough, which will incorporate that starter.
03:09So we're going to start with our autolyse.
03:10Big word.
03:11Very simple.
03:12Autolyse is flour and water mixed together.
03:15You don't want to go too hot, because that's going to speed up proofing and basically overproof
03:20your dough.
03:21You don't want to go too cold, because then you'll be sitting here waiting for the dough
03:23to proof for hours and hours and hours.
03:26At home, you may not have a thermometer, and that's totally okay.
03:29You want to go for room temp water.
03:3277.
03:3377 degrees is our ideal temp.
03:35Things are constantly changing when it comes to bread.
03:38And you can't always catch that on a recipe.
03:41Even now, we have a little board over there where what water temp we want.
03:46It is what makes restaurant bakery bread different than home bread, because we're really honing
03:51in on the details and the temperature and the time.
03:54What I'm actually going to do is scale all the water in here.
03:57But then I'm going to hold back, we say about 5%, and we're going to add it to the dough
04:02later on.
04:03And it's going to help incorporate the salt into the dough a little bit better.
04:07Okay, now we're going to scale our flour.
04:09This flour is the best.
04:11It develops gluten really easy.
04:13I'm just going to go over to the mixer and mix.
04:14Whenever you're making any bread or dough, water in first.
04:19You could use a KitchenAid, but you could also absolutely do this by hand.
04:25That's how we developed it.
04:26We developed this recipe by hand in our New York City apartment.
04:29We're going to let this go for about a minute.
04:31If you're doing this by hand at home, you really are just getting your hands in there
04:35and making sure you're mixing it until there's no dry flour spots.
04:40So this is what it looks like right after it's been mixed.
04:43If this dough is not mixed enough or doesn't get enough strength from all the folding,
04:47what you will really see is that your dough is super flat.
04:51We're going to leave this for about 25 to 30 minutes.
04:54And that's really just to make sure that all the flour gets super hydrated.
04:58So timer is running for 30 minutes on our autolyse for focaccia.
05:02While we're waiting on that, we're going to scale out the other necessary ingredients
05:06for focaccia.
05:07We use fine sea salt.
05:09It has a higher sodium content than just kosher salt.
05:12People are going to say that radio sourdough is not real sourdough because there's yeast
05:16in it.
05:17But we use less than 2% of yeast in all of our bread because a little bit of just instant
05:23active yeast makes sure that our dough is consistent every single day.
05:28Salt and yeast.
05:29I'm going to put these with my water that I set aside so I have everything ready to
05:34go.
05:35This dough has been autolysing for about 28 minutes now.
05:39And you can see how different the dough is.
05:42See how extensible that is?
05:44Just 30 minutes ago it was like falling apart in my hand.
05:47And now it's super strong and that's a really good sign.
05:51Now we are going to add our small amount of yeast right on top.
05:55So our yeast is on there and then we're going to add our levain that was mixed earlier in
06:02the day and has been ripening for several hours, which is going to give us flavor and
06:06a little bit of like sourdough tang, but it's also going to help leaven it.
06:11We're going to go for about four minutes and this is just to help incorporate the yeast
06:16in the starter.
06:17We're not really developing gluten yet.
06:20We're going to scrape it down because we want to make sure we get every little bit incorporated
06:24in here.
06:25If there's any dry spots on the side, it's just going to make for the dough that's not
06:29mixed very cohesively and we want a nice, smooth, elastic dough.
06:35We're going to start another four minutes.
06:36We're going to slowly start adding the salt and then we're going to stream in the water
06:40and the dough will actually break apart again while we add the water.
06:43If you're scared, if you feel like it's too sticky, leave a little bit water out.
06:47It'll make it easier to handle.
06:49The air bubbles might be a little bit smaller, but it'll taste great.
06:52This is the scary part, right?
06:55When people do this at home, the dough is completely coming apart.
06:59You just have to have faith.
07:00Just keep mixing.
07:01The dough just came out of the mixer.
07:03We're putting it in our bus tub.
07:05We're going to give it a couple of folds just to make sure it is all cohesive and even.
07:11It's already pretty strong.
07:13We're going to put a lid on this.
07:14We're going to set a timer for 30 minutes and then come back and give it another fold.
07:19We're going for four folds every 30 minutes to help develop gluten.
07:25After mixing, the dough has been resting for 30 minutes.
07:28If you're at home and you couldn't develop the gluten enough, like we did in the mixer,
07:32the slap and fold is going to be really crucial to developing the gluten.
07:36It has relaxed and really spread out in the bus tub.
07:40I'm going to spin it, get my hands in water again.
07:43Pull, pull, pull.
07:46The dough is in this nice, cohesive mass, and it's back to being a strong little packet.
07:52We're going to put a lid on this, give it another 30 minutes, and basically give it
07:56three more folds.
07:57By your last fold, you want to be a little bit more gentle.
08:00That is our last slap and fold.
08:03Now we're going to put the lid on.
08:04It's going to increase in size.
08:06Take over the container before we shape it.
08:11This is my favorite part of making bread.
08:13This has been proofing for about three hours.
08:16What we're looking for now is that the dough fills the bin, and not only does it fill the
08:20bin, but there's some tension and rounding of it on the sides of the bin.
08:25We're going to shape.
08:28As I mentioned, this is a very, very sticky dough.
08:32The best way to work with it is with lots of water on your hands.
08:36We use these special pans.
08:38They're called Lloyd pans.
08:39They're basically deep dish style pizza pans.
08:42They're amazing.
08:43They conduct heat very well.
08:44I just have a fine layer of oil in here.
08:47It should be enough to coat the bottom so that it doesn't stick to the pan.
08:51I'm going to get my hands a little wet.
08:53This means that the dough is nice and strong.
08:57You can see it holding onto itself.
08:59If it doesn't have any tension, or if it's moving all over the table, it could be a sign
09:03that it doesn't have enough strength, and therefore, it might not have enough rise in
09:07the oven.
09:08For this, this looks amazing, and I'm really happy for it.
09:10This is a good tip for proofing dough or your starter.
09:14If you put the dough in water and it floats, that means there's enough air in there and
09:19that it's perfectly proofed.
09:20We have since learned.
09:21I like to give it a little bit of stitching.
09:23This helps with creating some tension in the dough, and it helps with the rise.
09:28This dough likes to be told what to do, and so we give it a little boost, and I'm making
09:32it into a nice little packet.
09:34I'm going to press this packet out a little bit.
09:36What we're really looking for is just an even amount of dough in the pan.
09:41Everyone likes their focaccia differently.
09:43You want a super thick focaccia, go for it.
09:46Fill the pan up.
09:47I mean, it might explode when it's proofing, but that's what it's all about.
09:51We have just divided and shaped our focaccia.
09:56Now we're going to put it on our speed rack with the rest of our focaccias that we did
10:00earlier in the day, and we're going to let it sit for about an hour and a half to two
10:04hours.
10:05We're going to relax the dough, proof it a little bit more.
10:08It's been about two hours.
10:09The focaccia is basically touching the lid of the pan.
10:13You can see there's some air bubbles happening here, and it's super relaxed.
10:17We're going to put the bread in the walk-in overnight.
10:19What we really want is to just cool it down and stop the proofing so that we can come
10:24in tomorrow and then bake it fresh.
10:27If you wanted to shorten this, you could proof it for a little bit longer and bake it immediately.
10:32We have done that, but since we are in a bakery setting, this is what works for our
10:37schedule.
10:38These are the focaccias that we shaped yesterday.
10:43They went in the walk-in overnight just to chill.
10:46Typically we would pull these out at 5 a.m. when my bakers come in the morning, and they
10:51should look cold.
10:52There's still lots of air in them, but they're really cold and tight.
10:56If I was at home and I had focaccia in the walk-in, I would just pull it out first thing
11:00in the morning, later in the afternoon, let it sit at ambient temp for 2, 3, 4 hours.
11:05It's not going to overproof.
11:07What you are really looking for is for it to just equalize in temperature.
11:10I'm just really trying to stretch it to fill the pan so that it stays nice and square because
11:16this is going to become 10 sandwiches or 8 pieces of focaccia, and we want to make sure
11:21that everyone has a nice, equal piece.
11:23Bubbles are starting to form.
11:25This is what we're looking for, and this is what we mean by proofing.
11:27This means our dough is very active, and we call this a happy dough.
11:31We're going to pop them in the proofer to just heat them up to ambient temp.
11:34If you're making these at home, I would recommend covering it with a towel or plastic wrap.
11:39This is our proofer retarder.
11:40It's a very magical piece of equipment.
11:43It's just a box that can pump humidity and keep a solid temperature.
11:49These are going in at 28 degrees Celsius and like 85% humidity.
11:54The humidity just makes sure that nothing is going to crust over.
11:58If something crusts over, then it can't expand.
12:01We're just going to quickly proof this for about an hour, let it relax, we'll see some
12:05more bubbles, and we'll come back to it later.
12:10Our focaccia has been proofing for a little bit over an hour in our proofer.
12:15We have an ever-rotating focaccia topping.
12:18We have a sausage and chive, an olive and grape and rosemary, and then we always have
12:23a tomato focaccia.
12:24With the sausage and chive focaccia, we're really going for like creamy, crunchy, fatty,
12:30and then like fresh onion-y chives.
12:31It's just like the perfect combination of textures and flavors that really hits all
12:36the right notes.
12:37Now we're going to make our sausage and chive focaccia.
12:40We're going to go just straight up creme fraiche first.
12:44Creme fraiche has a high heat tolerance, so it's not going to break when exposed to heat.
12:51Sour cream will break when it's exposed to high heat.
12:54Now we're going to add our sausage, which is bacon trimmings, prosciutto trimmings,
12:59a little smoky, a little fatty.
13:02I'm going to add a little bit of our good olive oil, and then we're going to dock it.
13:06This is called golden nana olive oil.
13:08It is buttery and light and bright.
13:11The dimpling is really important because we want to make sure that we are spacing the
13:16air bubbles out evenly, and don't be afraid to touch the bottom of the pan.
13:21Unconfident dock.
13:23The more you dock, the more you're going to knock out air.
13:25We're going to put this in our deck oven.
13:28These are going to bake for about 15 to 18 minutes until they're super toasty on the
13:32bottom and evenly brown on top.
13:35The deck oven is super special because it has stones on the bottom that's going to help
13:40regulate the heat and really make sure that the bottom of this gets nice and toasty.
13:45You can absolutely make this at home in your home oven.
13:49If you have a pizza stone, that is a great start.
13:52So we are baking these at 550.
13:55The bottom stones are at 100% heat, and then we have it on 50% heat on top.
14:01We found that that creates the nice, perfect golden crust.
14:04The most important thing is you want to bake it hot and fast.
14:08Okay, we're going to pull her out.
14:09This has been about 15 minutes.
14:12The sausage and chive, the bottom goes really quick because there's so much fat coming down
14:17from the bacon and stuff.
14:18So it really helps with the crustiness.
14:21It's literally frying in the fat and olive oil.
14:25It smells like bacon in here.
14:28We're going to check the bottom.
14:30Like dark golden brown.
14:33That's great.
14:34We're going to put this here.
14:36This gets finished with lots of chives, and that's going to give it its fresh, oniony
14:43flavor and help cut the fat of the bacon and the creme fraiche.
14:47We're going to do a little bit more olive oil.
14:52Some guests love the burnt, crusty ends.
14:55Some guests prefer the middle.
14:57Everyone gets what they want out of this.
14:59We're looking for, there's some nice, beautiful air pockets.
15:02We've got little buckets of creme fraiche and our sausage, and then the bottom is just
15:08super, super crisp and golden brown.
15:11And that's the perfect one.
15:13Eating this focaccia hot, out of the oven, is like one of the best things you could eat
15:20here.
15:21Fatty from the bacon, the creme fraiche, slightly greasy.
15:24We love the little greasy fingers.
15:25Super crunchy on the bottom, and then like fresh and oniony from the chives.
15:30Hits all the notes.
15:31People often ask us, why do you sell it so early?
15:34We are a very small bakery, and this is a three-day process to make our focaccia.
15:40Ours is so unique because of the time and effort that goes into it.
15:45This is my favorite step because I feel like I'm like a child again, just able to play.
15:52To see the end product is, it's magic.
15:58It really is.