Fougasse Bread

Our easy-to-follow recipe shows you how to make authentic fougasse bread in your wood-fired oven. Fougasse is a delicious French flatbread that is similar to Italian focaccia. The crisp crust gives way to a spongy, slightly chewy crumb. Fougasse is traditionally shaped to look like a rustic leaf, with open slits mimicking the veins and stem of the leaf.

Preparation time

2 hrs

Cooking time

15 minutes

Serves

4 people

Ingredients

500g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
7g fast-action yeast
10g salt
350ml tepid water

Method

Preheat your Fuego oven to 200°C.
To make the dough, place the flour in a mixing bowl and stir the salt through it and then the yeast. Slowly add the water and bring the mix together into a sticky dough.
Tip the dough out on to your worktop and knead for about 10 minutes. Place in a clean, floured bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen cloth and leave to rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
Using a dough scraper, gently tip the risen dough out on to your worktop. Using the scraper cut the dough into quarters. You should then have 4 portions of dough, shaped like flat rounded triangles or leaves. Using the tip of the dough scraper, cut a line in the middle of the leaf shaped dough, making sure you cut right through without reaching both ends. This line will be like a centre vein on a leaf. Then, on either side of that line, at a 45-degree angle, cut three little ‘veins’ in the same way. Stretch the dough slightly so the holes open up. Repeat the process with the other 3 pieces of dough.
Place the leaves onto two floured baking sheets, two leaves per sheet. Allow to prove for another 30 minutes covered with a damp cloth.
Using a floured pizza peel, slide the fougasse breads directly on to the hot oven floor, spraying a mist of water inside the chamber before you shut the door. Bake for 12–15 minutes.

Fougasse Bread

Perfectionists in the Art of Wood-Fired Cooking.