These leaf-shaped breads are easy to make and usually served plain or
with a few needles of rosemary or some olive oil but this version
uses orange, fennel seeds, and a dusting of crunchy demerara sugar.
The result is a bread that's sweet without being sickly, pretty but
not fussy and ideal for mid-afternoon snacks. Fennel's aniseed edge
sits perfectly with orange, but if you don t like it you could swap
the seeds with a handful of currants or a scattering of poppy seeds.
Stir the flour, yeast, and salt together in a large bowl. Using a
pestle and mortar, grind the fennel seeds until no whole seeds remain
or simply pulse in a coffee grinder, if you have one. No need to
worry about reducing the seeds to a perfectly smooth powder in fact,
it's nice to see flecks of fennel in the finished dough. Stir the
fennel into the flour along with the orange zest.
Whisk together the yoghurt and water then add this to the dry
ingredients. Roll your sleeves up and get stuck in: mix the
ingredients with your hands to form a rough dough. Knead the dough on
an unfloured work surface. Although it will be sticky to start with,
adding extra flour at this stage will leave the dough stiff and dry.
After 10 minutes or so, the dough should be ready it will become
smoother, less sticky and more elastic
Leave the dough to rise for 1-1 hours. It should roughly double in
size during this time as the feeding yeast fills minuscule air
pockets in the dough with carbon dioxide. Once it's risen, tip the
dough out and divide into 6 pieces. Grease a couple of large baking
trays with a neutrally flavoured oil.
It's now time to shape the fougasses. Lightly dust the work surface
with flour and roll out one of the pieces of dough thinly to a rough
oval shape, 15 to 20 cm long. Dust the top with more flour if the
rolling pin sticks. Use a sharp knife to make a long incision down
the length of the oval, leaving the ends intact to avoid bisecting it
this is much like the central vein of a leaf. Now make three or four
diagonal slits either side of the central cut, sloping up and away
from the middle but touching neither the central cut nor the dough's
edges. Gently stretch the dough leaf to open these incisions, and set
the shaped fougasse to rest on one of the prepared baking trays.
Repeat with the remaining dough.
Leave the fougasses to rise at room temperature for 30-45 minutes, or
until visibly puffier. There s no need to cover the rising dough, but
it helps to put it in a draught-free spot. Preheat the oven to
200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
Whisk together the egg yolk and milk and brush lightly over the risen
fougasses with a pastry brush. Sprinkle the sugar generously over the
top of each one then place them in the oven to bake. How long you
cook them depends on the texture you like: for soft fougasses, 10
minutes will suffice; for chewier ones with a crisp crust, 13 to
15 minutes should do it.
