Sourdough Focaccia – Perfect For Beginners / Lazy Bakers
After my success of creating the Chocolate Cake Focaccia Recipe, I fell in love in how simple the process of making focaccia is. And since I wanted to create another focaccia recipe with a dessert theme, why not make a blueberry focaccia that tastes like blueberry muffins? The open and irregular crumb, as well as the light and chewy texture of sourdough focaccia are what separates from its sourdough loaves counterparts. Most importantly, as shaping is not required when making focaccia, it means that 1. You can use a higher hydration dough and 2. There is more room for errors. Hence, this recipe is perfect for beginners of sourdough baking. And if you meet any one of the following criteria, you’ve come to the right place:
- Beginners of sourdough baking
- Lazy bakers who are looking for a recipe that you do not need to pay too much attention to the techniques of dough handling, such as shaping.
- Blueberry muffin is your favorite kind of muffins
- You love bread (well, that pretty much includes everyone)😏
If you like blueberry sourdough, check out the Blueberry Sourdough that Tastes Like Blueberry Cheesecake.
Freeze Dried Blueberry Powder
There are two major reasons for which I chose to use freeze dried blueberry powder instead of fresh blueberries. First, using blueberry powder yield a beautiful purple color in the dough. Secondly, when choosing blueberry powder over fresh blueberries, I have more control over the hydration as I don’t need to account for the extra moisture from fresh blueberries.
Toppings
As for the toppings, apart from fresh blueberries, I also added some cinnamon sugar mixture. This way, the top of the focaccia will caramelized once baked, making it tastes like blueberry muffin. You can also add some walnuts or chocolates if you wish.
Blueberry Sourdough – Dessert Bread At Its Best
If you like blueberry muffins and sourdough (who doesn’t), then you’ll LOVE this recipe. This dessert bread is blueberry muffins meet sourdough bread, but better! 😉🙌🏻 Imagine having a delectable blueberry muffin but with the texture of sourdough bread. And the best thing is, you don’t really need much attention when preparing the dough. Simply mix it, stretch and fold for a few times. Then, leave the dough the rise in a baking pan (I used Challenger Breadpan) until it’s time to bake! You can bake it the same day for less tanginess. Or if you like the taste of sourdough like I do, leave it in the fridge overnight for the flavors to develop.
Sourdough Blueberry Focaccia (Tastes Like Blueberry Muffin)
Course: DessertCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy8
servings30
minutes33
minutesThis dessert bread is blueberry muffins meet sourdough bread, but better! 😉🙌🏻 Imagine having a delectable blueberry muffin but with the texture of sourdough bread.
Ingredients
252g bread flour
50g spelt flour
50g sugar
191g water
72g levain (use at peak)
15g water (added with salt)
7g salt
- Toppings
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
Directions
- Prepare the Levain
- Feed your starter using 1:2:2 (starter:flour:water) ratio. Cover loosely and let it rise until it tripled in size, around 5-6 hours.
- Autolyse
- In a large mixing bowl, mix flour and water until everything in incorporated into a dough. Cover and let it rest for 2 hours.
- Mixing the Dough & Bulk Fermentation
- Once your levain has peaked, add 72g of levain to the dough. Knead in a mixer for 3-4 minutes or until you feel the dough has strengthened. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Add 7g sea salt, freeze dried blueberry powder and 50g of sugar to the dough and mix for another 3-5 minutes. Cover and rest for 30 minutes at 75°F.
- Perform four sets of stretch and fold every 30 minutes.
- After the last set of stretch and fold, you can either place the dough in the fridge overnight or up to 36 hours. Or you can transferred dough to well oiled pan. I used my challenger bread pan.
- Grease the bottom and the sides of the pan generously with olive oil.
- Every 30-45 min, gently stretched the dough in the pan but oiled hands. Repeat this step two more times. So stretch 3 times in total.
- After the last stretch, let the dough proof at 75°F for 2.5 more hours or until the dough is puffy and jiggly. Total proofing time in pan: 4 hours.
- 1 hour before baking, preheat your oven to 450°F.
- Drizzle with olive oil, dimple dough, add toppings, then baked in the oven for 33 minutes.
