My daughter tried to make garlic focaccia and mixed fresh garlic into the dough instead of topping it. Ended up with an oily thick cracker.
You can use fresh garlic, but only up to a point.
When I do it I’m going to use a long cold ferment. A few days long.
If you want to use it fresh you can peel and blanch it, or leave it in its skin and and put it in a hot dry pan like you do for some Mexican salsas. It will change the flavor though, you won’t have that garlic bite.
You can also try slicing it, since that breaks fewer cells.
I’ll have to look up how to ferment garlic. She minced the garlic and then added it to the dough before the second rise.
Thanks for the tips.
Sorry, I was unclear there. By ferment I was referring to letting the dough have a long time to ferment.
You can of course ferment garlic, like you do in kimchi.
Key is to slice it with a very sharp and thin knife. Think almond sliver thickness. The amount of allicin (and wouldn’t it be awesome if your daughter’s name was Allison lol) released will be minor, thus not killing off the yeast except right against the garlic.
You can also rinse the slivers and let them dry, which helps as well.
You can even do minced if you rinse and dry, but then you don’t get the garlic flavor as much, what with more of the good stuff being released and lost.
But, yeah, most people push slivers into the dough right before baking, at least that I’ve ever seen. When it’s used in the dough, it’s usually roasted garlic rather than fresh. Again, that’s based on what I’ve run across.
I’ll let her know to try that next time. Thanks.
Yum
Well as far as baking failures go, that was probably still a pretty tasty one
But yeah, best way to load butter on to a bread thing is to put the garlic in a bunch of melted butter. It’s focaccia, it was gonna be unhealthy anyway
Yes, learned now that we could’ve sautéed the garlic in olive oil or butter and then spread that mixture on top of the dough just prior to baking.
It was edible and we ate half of it but the oily texture became a turn off after awhile.
Good luck to your daughter with the next loaf! I hope it hasn’t put her off
Garlic confit instead of fresh! With Rosemary! 🤤
