I’m on a bit of a baking mission at the moment. It’s to do with the cold. There’s nothing more homely than the smell of freshly baked bread and there’s the bonus of the extra heat from the oven.
A big hit with all the family is this focaccia. It’s pretty simple but there’s a bit of waiting for the yeast to do its business. It’s a nice thing to make at the weekend when it’s just too parky to play outside. Get the family to join in with a bit of kneading and this is the perfect indoor plaything.
You can top focaccia with pretty much whatever you want – typically it’d be rock salt, oil and rosemary – but onions, artichokes and even sugar and nutella are options (Rosie would spy enviously at her friends arriving at school gobbling down the last of their sugary focaccia, a popular Italian breakfast on the run). This recipe uses our organic sun-dried cherry tomatoes. They’re really yummy pachino tomatoes, grown only in Sicily, and a little burst of summer for these wintery days.
Ingredients for serving for 4
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, making sure there are no lumps. Add the flour, the salt, the yeasty water and oil to a mixing bowl. Mix it all together with a plastic dough scraper and then turn onto a floury surface. Knead it for 10 minutes till it bounces back to the touch and feels elastic. Make it into a big dough ball and put it in an oiled bowl, drizzle all over with olive oil, then leave in a warm place covered with a tea towel. It should take about 1 hour to double in size. Now grease a baking tray with some oil and ease out the dough onto it, keeping the smooth, top of the ball facing up. Now flatten it out in the tray with your fingers until it’s about 2cm thick. Pull off clumps of rosemary leaves and push them into the dough. The better they are inserted the less likely they are to burn. Do the same with the cherry tomatoes and then cover again with a teatowel and leave for half an hour to rise some more.
Preheat the oven to 220oC/425oC/GM7. When the dough has risen to about twice the thickness make more indentations with your fingertips, drizzle all over with olive oil and sprinkle good dose of rock salt. Now whack it in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Turn out onto a wire rack so it doesn’t sweat underneath, and eat within a day.
What a joy it was to cook this at the weekend. Had run out of the nudo cherry tomatoes which I’d received as part of a Christmas hamper so opted for using some of the artichokes instead. Delicious!