This delicious herb fougasse recipe is based on Paul Hollywood’s recipe as featured in the Great British Bake Off 2016.
This year I’m baking along with the Great British Bake Off. This week I decided to make a fougasse.
What is fougasse?
A fougasse is a herb bread. It is perfect for tearing and sharing with friends or family at the table. Fougasse originates from Provence in France, although similar breads are made elsewhere in France
Some versions are made into the shape of a sheaf of wheat.
How did our herb fougasse turn out?
Having never made it before I decided to base my recipe upon Paul Hollywood’s recipe for fresh herb fougasse. This has to be one of my favourite Great British Bake Off bread recipes – it’s just so good.
R, six, decided that he wanted to help me, which was lovely. His sister, who is four, is always helping me in the kitchen, but R isn’t quite so keen. He does love bread making however, so maybe that’ll be his thing.
For this recipe we used a stand mixer so his main jobs were pouring and watching the timer. It’s actually the first time that I’ve used my stand mixer to make bread, preferring usually to do it by hand, but as Paul Hollywood recommends using one as this is such a sticky dough I decided to follow his advice. I was really glad that I did because this was undoubtedly the stickiest dough I’ve ever worked with! I was worried that I’d added too much water but it turned out ok.
The only difference to the original recipe is that I didn’t have any rosemary – my plant didn’t survive last winter and I haven’t got around to replacing it – so I left that out.
Here are some of my other Great British Bake Off recipes. I didn’t manage to do last week’s pastry week but so far I have made:
Chocolate, hazelnut and cranberry soda bread
Vegan apple and cinnamon viennese whirls
Chocolate jaffa oat bars
Each of this recipes is my own twist on what the contestants in the baking show were asked to do.
Here’s how to make this fresh herb fougasse recipe:
Herb fougasse recipe
Ingredients
- 500 g strong white bread flour plus extra for dusting
- 10 g fine salt
- 7 g instant yeast in a sachet
- 2 tbsp olive oil plus extra for greasing and drizzling
- 350 ml warm water
- 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 2 tsp chopped fresh sage
- fine semolina for dusting
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- Sea salt to finish
Instructions
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Lightly grease a large plastic container (I used a metal mixing bowl) with olive oil. Line two large baking sheets with greaseproof baking paper.
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Put 500g strong white flour, 10g salt and a 7g sachet of instant yeast into the bowl of a freestanding electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. (Don’t put the salt directly on top of the yeast). Add 2 tbsp olive oil and three-quarters of the water (265 ml) and start to mix on a low speed. As the dough starts to come together, add the remaining water very slowly, then mix for eight minutes on a medium speed. Add 2 tsp chopped sage and 2 tsp chopped thyme and mix for a further minute. When ready, the dough will be very elastic and you should be able to stretch it away from the bowl.
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Tip the dough into the oiled container/bowl. Cover and leave to rise until at least doubled in size – about an hour (I left it an hour and 15 minutes and it was definitely more than double by then). The dough should be bouncy and shiny.
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Dust the work surface with flour. Tip out the dough. It'll probably be quite loose - it's meant to be like this. Divide the dough in half.
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Lift each piece of dough onto the prepared baking sheets and spread out into flat ovals. Make two cuts in a line down the middle of the dough with a gap between them (see photo). Paul Hollywood says to use a pizza cutter. I couldn't find ours so I used a sharp knife, but it was pretty tricky as the dough just stuck to the knife. Then make 12 diagonal cuts in the dough, six on either side of the central cuts, forming a leaf design, then stretch the dough out slightly to emphasise the holes.
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Place the baking sheets inside large plastic bags and leave to prove in a warm place for 20 minutes. (I didn't have any large plastic bags so I left it to prove in the open) Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C Fan/gas mark 7.
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Drizzle over a little olive oil. Sprinkle over the oregano and bake for 15–20 minutes, or until the fougasse sounds hollow when tapped on the base (they took 25 minutes in my oven). Remove from the oven and while still hot, brush with more olive oil and sprinkle with the sea salt.
Here is the original recipe on the BBC website.
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They look amazing. I’ve used a similar recipe and I loved it, I baked Fougasse yesterday again, it’s so yummy. x
Thanks! Making the leaf shape was trickier than I expected but not bad for a first go X
Oooh they look good Mandy. I have to agree that the dough is particularly sticky, but given that the bakers largely seemed to knead theirs by hand I refrained from dragging ours of the corner where it sits (plus I have to admit that ours is a bit useless at kneading dough despite being sold with a dough hook!)Angela x
It’s the first time I’ve used a dough hook so I have nothing to compare it to – it seemed to do an ok job I think!
Some times its worth getting your hands sticky (even though you used a mixer I bet your hands still got sticky too)and this might be just such an occasion because the bread look great,
Oh yes – plenty of dough got washed off my hands!
these look very nice Mandy – i bet they smelt gorgeous too? I love getting my hands doughy dirty – something more satisfying about a bake when you have got stuck in xx
They smelt divine! Thanks Jenny X
You’ve just reminded me that I was going to try a gluten-free version of this! As I am feeling rather stressed I may well potter off to the kitchen now…!! These look great by the way!
Sorry to hear about the stress! Hope the baking helps X