tomato berry fougasse; tuesdays with dorie

 this week for our baking with julia challenge, we were given the choice of baking blueberry muffins or a sweet berry fougasse, sigh...as a former bakery owner, trust me, i have mastered the art of blueberry muffins.  whose recipe it is just isn't important, it's a blueberry muffin; eat one and you've tasted most of them.  that left the sweet berry fougasse.  a simple description is a plain focaccia with a few berries and a handful of crumb topping.  one mention of berries in focaccia, both me and my husband immediately wrinkled our noses up-can you hear the ewwww?  either way, i was determined to bake something and while standing in the kitchen staring at the small mountain of tomatoes on the counter top, sudden epiphany; tomatoes are berries.  that small technicality was all i needed.

to bake the recipe yourself, consider buying or borrowing the book and turning to page 194 and for the muffins, page 208.  or, for those of you not able to find the book, the recipe for the fougasse and the required focaccia can be found here.

to make my bread, first i cut the focaccia recipe in half.  with just two of us in the house, more than that would be a waste.  after the required 24 hour rest in the fridge, i cut the dough in half and formed two rectangular slabs.  i gave them a liberal brush of olive oil, a sprinkle of freshly chopped herbs from the garden (rosemary, oregano and basil) and topped the loaf with thin slices of tomatoes.  into the oven they went.

nice and chewy with a tang from the fresh tomato slices.  perfect for a lazy dinner of salad and bread.  to see what the other bakers came up with, visit the tuesdays with dorie page.