If you’re gonna bake bread with herbes de Provence, it only makes sense to bake a Provençal bread, oui ? Oui ! 🌿 You may recognize fougasse from a GBBO technical challenge, and we actually used Paul’s recipe here! It’s simple, herby, salty, and delicious dipped in olive oil 😋
PrintFougasse aux Herbes de Provence
- Yield: 2 loaves 1x
Ingredients
Scale
Bread Dough:
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- 4 cups + 2 ½ Tbsp (500g) bread flour
- 2 ¼ tsp instant yeast (1 packet)
- 2 Tbsp (25g) olive oil
- 1 ½ cups (350g) water, lukewarm (110–115°F)
- 2 Tbsp (6g) L’Ami Provençal Herbes de Provence
- fine semolina + bread flour, for dusting
Topping:
- olive oil
- L’Ami Provençal Herbes de Provence
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, add salt, bread flour, and yeast in that order. (You want to avoid the salt touching the yeast.)
- Add olive oil and three-quarters of the lukewarm water (260g). Attach dough hook and start mixing on a slow speed.
- As the dough begins to come together, slowly pour in the remaining water.
- After all the water has been added, increase mixer speed to medium and knead dough until it’s smooth and cleans the sides of the bowl, about 8 minutes.
- Add herbes de Provence and knead for 1 minute more to evenly distribute the herbs throughout the dough.
- Tip dough out onto a clean work surface and form into a ball. Lightly grease inside of a large bowl with olive oil. Place dough into bowl and roll around to coat all sides with oil. Cover bowl with beeswax wrap or cotton bowl cover and place in a warm, dry spot and leave undisturbed until dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
- Towards the end of your proofing time, line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix a wee bit of bread flour and semolina (or cornmeal), then dust your work surface. After proofing, tip dough out onto floured surface. Divide into two pieces (about 445g each). Roll each dough blob around on flour-semolina to lightly coat the outside.
NOTE: This is a rather loose dough, so you’re on the right path if yours is a little flowy. - Place dough blobs onto individual baking sheets. Pat each into a 12" by 6" oval.
- Using a pizza cutter or paring knife, cut two lines longways down the centre, leaving 1–2" between the cuts and between the cuts and the dough edges.
- On both sides of the centre cuts, make 5–6 diagonal cuts to form a leaf design. Gently stretch out the holes a smidge to emphasize the design.
- Cover baking sheets and leave undisturbed in a warm place to proof for about 20 minutes.
NOTE: We placed both baking sheets on our baker’s cooling rack and covered the entire thing with a giant, food-safe plastic bag. - Heat oven to 425°F.
- Lightly spray or brush a wee bit of olive oil on your loaves. Sprinkle some herbes de Provence on top.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. The fougasse is baked through when it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Also, the internal temperature will be at least 190°F.
- Place baking sheet on wire rack. While fougasse is still hot, lightly spray or brush with more olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt.
- Enjoy warm or room temperature. If you like, serve with olive oil or something else for dipping!
Notes
Source: Paul Hollywood for The Great British Bake Off
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