Foccacia

 

It’s officially soup season in my house, which means breadmaking on Sundays so I have bread for with my soup at lunch.

Focaccia is my current favourite, on account of it freezing well and slicing perfectly into little pieces I can take with me to work.

As with most of the bread I make, the recipe’s from Simon and Alison Holst.

Ingredients

2 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cups water (lukewarm)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups high grade flour
olive oil
rock salt

 

Measure the first five ingredients into a large bowl with 1 1/2 cups of flour. Mix together well, and cover with plastic wrap. Leave for 15 minutes or longer in a warm place (I pop mine in the hot water cupboard in winter).

 

Stir in the remaining flour and knead for about ten minutes. If you want, this is the point where you can add garlic, oregano, or rosemary to go inside the bread. Just knead in a few tablespoons of what you like.

 

Clean and dry the bowl, then turn the dough in 2-3 teaspoons of olive oil in the bowl, cover again and place back in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

Lightly knead the dough, and shape into a rectangle about 20 x 30cm.

 

Place in a well-oiled swiss roll tin or on a baking tray and leave in a warm place for about an hour, or until its doubled in size.

 

Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over the bread, create indents on the surface by gently pressing your finger into the dough, and cover with sea salt and any kind of topping you want (e.g. pesto, sundried tomatoes, olives, parmesan cheese). Mine’s doing double duty as a side for lasagne and for with soup, so I’m leaving one side with just salt, and putting olives and sundried tomatoes on the other side.

Bake at 225C for 15 minutes.