Coca de forner or baker's cake is a very typical flat, elongated bread in Catalonia that was originally prepared with unenriched bread dough, brushed with olive oil, decorated with pine nuts and sugar on top and sprinkled with aniseed when it came out of the oven. Simple and very effective.
These cocas were used when the ovens were Moorish or rotating to settle and temper the oven, as well as to generate steam for the subsequent baking of the bread. The very high temperature left the coca very crispy on the outside and caramelized by the sugar, but tender on the inside due to the speed of cooking.
All of the above is explained much better than I can and from personal experience, which I do not have, by Jordi Mercadé here . As he says, we do not know how the custom of sprinkling cocas with anise originated, but we all agree that it is a great invention.
This is a very simple dough that contains all the wisdom of baking. Gosh, I'm being so cheesy, it must be the anise… Let's get on with it.
INGREDIENTS
Pre-ferment:
- 30 g of strong flour
- 30 g of water
- 1 g dry bakery yeast (3 g fresh yeast)
Coca dough:
- The previous preferment
- 140 g of strong flour
- 100 g of regular supermarket wheat flour
- 20 g of wheat semolina (optional)
- 1 g dry bakery yeast (3 g fresh yeast)
- 150 g of water
- 1.3 g of salt
- 20 g of virgin olive oil
Finish:
- Pine nuts to taste
- Sugar to taste
- A good splash of anise
ELABORATION
PRE-FERMENT
- Mix the starter ingredients in a bowl , without kneading, the night before. Cover and leave overnight at room temperature. If you prepare the starter in summer, you will probably be fine with half of the yeast.
- Also put the pine nuts you are going to use in a bowl with water. This is a tip from Xavier Barriga to prevent them from burning when cooking the cocas.
COCA MASS
- Place all the ingredients except the yeast, oil and salt in the bowl of a food processor . Mix at low speed, cover and let rest for 30 minutes to autolyse (this makes kneading easier later).
- After resting, add the previous ferment, oil and salt.
- Now start kneading in cycles of 1-2 minutes followed by 10 minute rests, until you get a fine and elastic dough, which will be quite sticky, this is normal.
- Form the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover and let it double in volume.
- Turn the fermented dough out onto a generously floured work surface, fold it lengthwise into thirds like a letter, flatten it very slightly with your fingers and transfer the dough to a sheet of baking paper.
- Stretch it a little by putting your fingers underneath until it forms a cake about one finger thick.
- Cover and let it ferment again. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to at least 240°, even more if your oven reaches this temperature.
- Once the coca has risen, brush it generously with olive oil. Sprinkle the pine nuts first, then the sugar.
- Transfer the paper to a baking tray ( perforated ones are ideal for quick and effective baking of the dough) and bake the coca for 15 minutes without air. Then lower the temperature to 200° and bake for another 5 minutes to finish browning and drying the coca, preferably with convection air.
- Fill a baby bottle with the anise and sprinkle generously on the coca as soon as it comes out of the oven. Leave it to cool on a rack. It will be ready to eat very quickly because it is so thin that it cools quickly.
Well, there you have the recipe for coca de forner , so satisfying that you will repeat it over and over again. Words from an amateur forner .
Comments
Claudia said:
Hola Gema, no hace falta que pongas nada, a falta de la sémola de trigo. Un saludo!!
Claudia said:
Verdad que sí, Gloria? Por algo es un clásico, un saludo!
Gema said:
Me encanta esta coca! Una pregunta: si no tenemos sémola de trigo duro, ponemos la cantidad equivalente de harina normal o no ponemos nada?
Gloria Vázquez said:
Tan sencilla y tan rica, una de mis preferidas. Gracias