Lavender Focaccia

Lavender Focaccia (Paraphrased & slightly adapted) from (you guessed it) The Bread Baker's Apprentice By Peter Reinhart Herbed oil 1 cup olive oil (Don't bother with extra virgin for this, yo.) 2 heaping tablespoons dried lavender flowers 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence 1 tablespoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon white pepper 2 teaspoons freeze dried shallots zest of one lemon Warm the oil to 100* F, remove from heat and stir in the other ingredients. Once it has cooled, it can be refrigerated, but it'll go on the dough the same day, so you might as well leave it out to imbue itself with delicious flavour. Dough 5 cups bread flour 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons instant yeast 6 tablespoons olive oil 2 cups water, room temperature herb oil honey additional lavender, lemon zest, and basil to mix in the dough Stir together the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl, then add the oil and water until the ingredients form a wet, sticky ball. Continue stirring until the dough is smooth. It should stick to the bottom of the bowl, but clear the sides. This would be a good time to add herbs to the dough. Sprinkle flour on the counter and turn the dough onto it, shaping it into a rectangle. Let dough rest five minutes.

With floured hands, stretch the dough to form a rectangle twice its size. Fold it, letter style into a smaller rectangle. Mist with spray oil, dust with flour, and cover losely with plastic wrap. Let rest 30 minutes, then stretch and fold again. Let rest another 30 minutes and repeat the process. Let rest one hour. The dough should swell, but not necessarily double in size. Line a 17" by 12" baking sheet with parchment and gently place the rectangle of dough in the middle. Spoon about half the herb oil over the top, and use your fingers to poke holes in the dough and stretch it out in the pan. (It probably won't go all the way to the edges at this point.) Cover the pan and refrigerate overnight, or for up to three days. Three hours before baking, remove the pan from the refrigerator, pour the rest of the oil over it. (I, uh, essentially doubled the amount of oil the recipe called for here, but... it's delicious. And possibly part of why it burnt like that.) Use your fingers to poke more holes in the dough and stretch it out further. Now it ought to reach the edges, or close to it. The dough should be about 1/2" deep. Drizzle the dough with honey. (I used a thicker, French honey and spooned it in 1/4 teaspoon blobs all over, but drizzling liquid honey to taste would work too.) Let rise 3 hours, covered at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 500*F and place the focaccia on the middle shelf. Lower the temperature to 450* and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking, and bake another 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. (Mine took about 7 minutes, and ended up a very dark brown, as you see.) Remove the pan from the oven and move the focaccia to a cooling rack. Remove the parchment from the bottom and let cool at least 20 minutes before eating.