Tuesday 22 April 2008

Taste & Create: Focaccia

This is my entry for this month's Taste and Create, which is hosted by the lovely Nicole over at For The Love of Food! This month I have been matched with KJ over at A Cracking Good Egg. I spent a fun couple of hours looking through her archives, and eventually narrowed my choices down to the luscious Flourless Chocolate Cake, her take on French Onion Soup, homemade crumpets, or Fantastic Focaccia. Due to serious overindulgence at the weekend, I've had to forgo the chocolate cake, I couldn't find my crumpet rings (I'm sure I had something like this before!), then arbitrarily decided on Focaccia between the last two! I'm definitely keeping these other recipes in my to-make list!

(I've got a rotten head cold just now - which seems to be adversely affecting my writing ability. Apart from the fact that I need to retype every other word due to misspelling (do colds cause the hapless victim's fingers to swell??) I also can't think of anything remotely interesting to say! I'm off work and watching daytime telly - right now, I'm watching a 6ft tall nanny being transformed into SJP. Oh dear, has it really come to this - I'm regaling you with what I'm watching on TV??? I should probably delete it, but bet I probably don't ;)

Ok, ok, stream of consciousness typing ends here!

Focaccia


This recipe was really easy to use. I had to make a couple of alterations - I used 1.5 tsp of active dry yeast, activated in the tepid water with 1.5 tsp of sugar instead of the fresh yeast.

I also let it rise slighty differently - I placed the runny dough into the greased baking tin before a first prove for 40 minutes or so. I then used an oiled spoon handle to push down the dough and create indents in which the olive oil would run. I then recovered it and left it for another half hour. Just before baking I drizzled some extra virgin olive oil over the surface and sprinkled with maldon sea salt.

The resulting bread was really tasty - with a lovely open springy texture - I'm looking forward to trying it again with some different toppings!


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8 comments:

KJ said...

Hi, I think you made a great choice. I love this bread. Yours looks terrific. I'm so glad you like it. I'll be posting my choice from your blog tomorrow. I've settled on your spinach and garlic soup recipe.

KJ said...

I've posted my effort at making your soup. It was delicious!! I hope you'll come see.

lcsa99@yahoo.com said...

Your foccacia looks great but I am more excited about the new design! You got it up! Yay!

Kavs said...

Like the new blog design! I'm hopeless when it comes to changing up web stuff... :)

giz said...

You did a really great job on the focaccia - you can have the job at my place anytime

Laura Paterson said...

Thanks for the comments on the redesign guys! It wasn't easy! I have a bit more to do - but need a break to build up some techy courage before I take it on!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I love this event Kitten. The foccacia bread is a perfect choice. It is always so hard to choose just one recipe don't you think?

Lori said...

The foccaccia looks great. I am quite sure you can make gorgous bread!