Weeknight Focaccia? Why not?

Note: for a follow-up on last week's Vinegar Pie, check out the bottom of this post.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote and talked about a Focaccia recipe I'd found on the Smitten Kitchen website. It's a really good recipe - but it takes some time to make. I mean... even in the "quick" version it takes a few hours. And I really don't want to wait that long most weeknights after work.

But we needed something to take to an event this week, and since we took cookies the last time we thought it would be good to change things up with something savory. And - for some reason - I thought "maybe focaccia would be good."

For those of you who prefer video, allow me to explain what's going on:

Wait. I skipped a few steps. Here are the ingredients:

4 cups (520 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups lukewarm water, made by mixing 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 1/2 cups cold water
4 tablespoons olive oil
Flaky sea salt

For the record, the olive oil I'm using is a garlic oil from a local olive oil purveyor.

Prior to showing off the bowl in the video, above, the ingredients looked like this:

A quick stir turned it into:

And then, just before filming, I covered it with a homemade beeswax-coated cloth:

And then I went to bed.

In the morning, I moved to the next step:

Post-stirring, it's a rather sad looking blend.

So, once again, the cover went on...

And this time I set it on top of the fridge to do its thing for the day while I went to work and did my thing for the day.

And it did its thing quite well over the course of the day, so that it looked like this at the end of the day:

A little garlic olive oil on the pan...

A little Play-doh time with the dough...

And after the "normal" stretching, I went a little off the rails and went at the dough with a bench scraper to make this batch into breadsticks.

Prior to baking, as I was sprinkling salt on them, they looked like this:

Post-bake, they looked like this:

How were they? Pretty much as good as you'd think. Not a single one of them came back home with us. And I really want to make more so I can eat the full pan...

Wouldn't you?

-----
Lots of people checked out last week's Vinegar Pie, and one of them was actually someone who grew up with Vinegar Pie. As I had guessed, his recollection of the reason behind it was to replace lemon when it wasn't readily available. As such, it pretty much did its job. 

Also - weird thing - it didn't do well over time. A couple days later when I went in for a final slice, the flavor had "turned" a bit. It was still edible, it just wasn't enjoyable - the flavor had gotten less bright, and more sour. 

But I'm still very glad I made it and tried it. I recommend you trying sometime, too.