I've gone through a ton of failures in my quest for a whole grain focaccia. Most of my attempts ended up as giant cracker-like things that were very strong tasting. Icky. What I wanted was a light and fluffy focaccia but whole grain. Finally. Success.
Whole Grain Focaccia
7 oz Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
8 oz Millet Flour
8 oz Oat Flour
1/2 cup Wheat Gluten
2 tsp Salt
1 Tbs yeast
1/2 cup Olive Oil
2 cups Water (bottled water works best)
1/2-1 cup Herb Oil (zap some herbs and garlic in some oil in the microwave for 30-60 seconds)
Stir together the dry ingredients. Add the water and oil (not the herb oil). Beat in a mixer for 7-12 minutes. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper then pour 1/3 of the herb oil in the pan. Plop the dough in the sheet pan and dimple the dough into the edges of the pan. If the dough doesn't stretch/dimple into the edges that's fine. Pour another 1/3 of the herb oil over the dough and cover the dough with 3 layers of plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 3 days.
Take out 3 hours before you want to eat it. Remove the plastic wrap and pour the last of the herb oil over the bread. If you want to add other toppings to the bread, do that now. Let the bread rise for an 1.5 hours (90 minutes) - preheat your oven to 500F 30-60 minutes before baking. It should look like this right before it goes in the oven:
It might even rise a little higher. Anyway, pop your bread in the oven; turn the temperature down to 450F and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the bread 180 degrees and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from the over and either leave in the pan (if you want the crust soft) or remove to a baking rack (if you want the crust crunchy/hard). You MUST leave the bread alone for 20 minutes because it's continuing to bake even after you take it out of the oven.
Low-Fat Note: You don't really need all that oil to make focaccia. You can leave it out of the dough recipe when you make it. You do need to spray the bottom of your sheet pan; brush the dough with oil before it goes in the fridge; and brush the dough with oil when you take it out of the fridge. The oil you brush on both before and after refrigeration lets the dough rise since the oil keeps the surface from drying out.
Herbs and Mix-ins: You can add herbs to the dough recipe or grilled onions, bacon, or whatever. It just makes the bread more delicious. Although if you add crunchy things - like bacon - they won't stay crunchy.
