Pretzel Focaccia

Heat the oven. Preferment: Blend the water plus yeast. Weigh your flour; or spoon it into a cup and level the top. Tip in the flour, mixing till this flour is incorporated. The preferment will be paste-as if it were; it will not form a ball. Put a lid on and leave to rest at room temperature for a period of 10 to 14 hours; overnight works well. Dough: Mix the preferment with the leftover dough ingredients. Blend plus work — by hand, mixer, or bread machine set upon the dough cycle — in order to make a dough that’s soft, smooth, springy, plus tacky. It should take around 6 to 8 minutes at mid-sized speed if you are kneading in a stand mixer. Stop the mixer plus scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to; the dough won’t completely clean these sides of the bowl, yet remain tacky throughout kneading. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover, plus let rise till doubled in bulk, around 1 hour. Use non-stick vegetable oil spray in order in order in order in order to grease a 9” x 13” pan. Drizzle olive oil atop the spray (1 tablespoon); the spray keeps the bread off sticking, while this olive oil gives this bottom crust great crunch plus flavor. To shape the focaccia: Move the dough to the ready pan and lightly stretch it into the corners. Put a lid on and leave to rest for 15 minutes before continuing in order to stretch it to fill the whole pan if the dough doesn’t reach these edges of the pan. Cover the pan and let the dough to rise for 30 minutes. Mix the bicarbonate of soda plus hot water to make the wash, mixing to dissolve in a little bowl. Brush all of this wash over the surface of the dough. Be generous using your application; it’s fine if some of this wash drips down the edges in the pan. Use your fingers in order to make irregularly spaced dimples in the dough, pushing down firmly; your fingers should reach this bottom of the pan without actually breaking through this dough. Re-cover the dough plus let it rise till it's noticeably puffy, around 45 to 60 minutes. The dough should have expanded, yet should not seem fragile nor look as if it were it might collapse. Toward this end of the rising time, heat the oven to 220°C. In order in order to top this focaccia: Before baking, brush the focaccia using the egg wash, next scatter using salt. This top of the dough will be quite wet yet don’t worry – any excess moisture will cook off in the oven. Focaccia: Bake the focaccia till the top is dark brown plus the bottom is amber (you can use an offset spatula or fork in order to lift the bread in order to peek at the bottom), around 24 to 30 minutes. Take out the focaccia from the oven and promptly move it off the pan to a cooling rack. Brush this top of the warm focaccia using the melted butter. Serving plus storage information: Enjoy focaccia warm off the oven. It’s best this same day it is made, yet leftovers can be successfully reheated, either as slices in this toaster or in a 175°C oven just till warmed through. The recipe can be easily doubled in order in order in order to feed a crowd. Double all the ingredients plus cook in one rimmed 13” x 18” (half sheet) pan.