Meyer Lemon Focaccia {A Tuesdays with Dorie Post}

I would like to believe that I have many positive virtues.  I am kind, a good listener, and a loyal friend.  However I also know that there are several virtues that I would love to have that my character simply lacks.  At the top of that list is patience.  I try my hardest to be a patient mother, wife and friend.  For me it is hard work and something I have to be very conscious of, because it just doesn't come naturally.  I've been reading a series of books with my oldest in which the main characters are Greek demigods and each has a fatal flaw that gets him or her into trouble- ego, blind loyalty, short sightedness, that sort of thing.  And I've often thought to myself while reading the stories that I would probably have more than one fatal flaw and one of them would most definitely be impatience.  I don't think I would make a very good demigod.

In this case, my lack of patience meant that a lot of precious ingredients and my time all went to waste because I just couldn't wait a full day (or even 6 hours for that matter) for this lovely focaccia dough to rise properly.  I had such high hopes of a tender and airy bread with a lightly crispy exterior and a salty sweet topping.  Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed.  The thing is, I'm not a stranger to focaccia.  I've made several of them that have graced this blog before.  My favorite of them is a roasted grape focaccia that I made on a fall morning a couple of years ago.  Of course, even in that post I mentioned that the dough would greatly benefit from an overnight rest in the fridge.  So I ought to know better.  I ought to follow my baking instincts instead of letting my impatience get the better of me.  But my fatal flaw struck again.

I didn't let my dough rise nearly enough.  A couple of hours on my counter and a couple more in the fridge just weren't enough to allow the yeast to do its thing and create the big air bubbles that are characteristic if a good focaccia.  Instead I had a tough, almost cracker-like bread with a dull flavor.  Though my topping was spot on- thinly sliced meyer lemons sprinkled with rosemary and a mix of coarse sugar and sea salt- it couldn't make up for the flaws in the bread.  It would have been the perfect accompaniment to the roasted chicken I had planned for it to go along side.  Sigh. 

But I am determined to learn from my mistakes.  I still have a ball of dough waiting for me in the refrigerator.  I will try again and hopefully overcome my fatal flaw.  The next focaccia will be exactly how it was meant to be, I just know it.

Perhaps my fellow bakers fared better in their attempts to be patient than I did.  To find out, simply head on over to the Tuesdays with Dorie webpage and check out everyone else's breads.  You can find the recipe for the focaccia on our host's site, Wandering Through.  Just judging by Sharmini's cover photo, her focaccia rose perfectly.  Maybe I'll read her post to see how she accomplished it while I wait (impatiently, of course) for my dough to rise.