Whip it up week #3

This week I decided to try to make Olive-Thyme Foccacia!

Ingredients

2 cups tepid water
½ tsp sugar
1 envelope active, dry yeast
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
2 tbs minced thyme
1 ½ tbs olive oil
½ cup black olives, pitted

Directions

Put tepid water in a bowl and sprinkle with the sugar and yeast. Leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes until it starts to froth.

Mix the flour, salt and half the thyme together in a large bowl, then add the oil. Make a hole in the center and pour in the yeast mix. Stir with a wooden spoon, gradually taking in the flour from the sides until thoroughly combined. Knead into a firm dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean.

Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen-towel and put somewhere warm to double in size.

Turn the dough out onto a greased baking sheet and punch it down, spreading it with your fingers or a flour-dusted rolling pin, to make a rectangular shape.

Brush the top with extra olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining thyme. Poke regular indentations in the top of the dough and push olives in them.

Bake in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for about 35 minutes, or until the top is just turning golden-brown.

Difficulty level: Medium

Taste: I am not a fan of olives so that is why you only see them on half of the foccacia bread. I am wondering if the recipe doesn't call for a lot of salt because of the salt in the olives?? Unfortunately both my side AND CP's side needed more salt. I think that it would have been nice to top the foccacia with kosher or sea salt and the thyme.

Would I make it again: Probably. It was my first time making foccacia so now that I know to add more salt, I think that it could be really tasty. I wasn't expecting it to make so much so only make this recipe if you want a lot of foccacia! :-)