It’s impossible to be on social media, search for Focaccia or baking recipes, and not stumble upon Focaccia bread with the twist of decorated landscape art!! They are beautiful .. few of them are absolutely stunning to say the least! Hence I tried to try my hand in this humble bread recipe. Bread recipe needs flour, yeast, salt, sugar, water and oil. But adding the condiments, herbs and vegetables makes it absolutely delicious.
Preparing the dough
- In a glass bowl, I added 2 cups of flour, salt, pinch of sugar, fresh yeast (10 mg). I mixed these dry ingredients thoroughly specially tried to integrate the yeast completely.
- Then, I added a little more than 1 cup of tepid water, mix it in and start forming the basic sticky dough.
- To form a proper shape I must have added half cup of flour and 2 tbsps of oil. I think this is best left to your judgement, but what you are looking for is a slightly bumpy surfaced dough.
- Then use a tbsp of more oil and start the “bread movement”… where you pull part of the dough and fold it in. Keep on doing the ” pull and fold” movement atleast 10 to 15 times.At the end of it, dough is super smooth surfaced.
- Transfer the dough to a nice plastic container, cover it with moist cloth and keep the container in sort of warm place. I kept it in my window pane, as I was getting sunlight from setting sun. Let the dough prove for 1 hour or so. It will raise, wait for it to rise.
- In the mean time, prepare your veggies if you have many things to cut.
Raise dough
- Before I spread the dough, I applied a little bit of olive oil at the base of the pan I am going to use for baking. I chose a circular pan, since that’s what I had, though ideally Focaccia are made in rectangular pans.
- After letting it sit for 1 Hour, I removed the dough, punched it to remove all the gas, and spread it in the circular pan.
- I covered the pan again, this time with plastic foil and let it sit for another 15 minutes.
- During those 15 minutes, finalise and prepare the vegetables you will need for the decoration.
- In a separate bowl mix 2 tbsps of Olive oil, 3 grated garlic and 1 tbsp of dried rosemary.
- After 15 minutes, pinch the dough in small dimples to remove the gas. Now, I added the oil- rosemary-garlic mixture in these dimples.
- Ideally one can stop at this step for making the most basic yet delicious Focaccia.
- But, I had to decorate the focaccia into a garden landscape.
Before you start the decoration, preheat the oven to reach 200 degrees.
Decoration
- I used thinly sliced red onions and red bell pepper, red cherry tomatoes (remove the seeds), spring onions and asparagus.
- I also used dried chives to create the grass effect.
- Also I had a large chili (big sized) which was changing it’s color from green to red ( through orange) and hence needed to be used here as a flower. First remove the seeds and cut it in circles. Use the circles and form spirals for a few. Place a circle and a spiral to form a petal.
- I finished it off with sprinkling flaky salt all over the dough.
Baking
Bake Focaccia for 15 minutes at 200 degrees centigrate . I kept the fan on.After 15 minutes, it was ready to devour.
Verdict
- It was fluffy and light after cutting which helped me in eating 3 slices in one sitting without any guilt.
- I am happy that I added the flaky salt, as it gave the salty taste which was needed.
- Onions and peppers taste delicious when baked. Next time, will add olives.
- Last but most important, It looks and tastes equally delicious. That rosemary- garlic olive oil base makes it sort of moist and absolutely not dry.
