Focaccia Art
Ingredients
500g freshly proved sourdough dough, Or, 500g freshly proved standard yeast dough (white dough is best using Matthews Canadian Great White Strong Bread flour).
Olive oil.
Fresh Rosemary, with stems.
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into slivers.
24 small assorted coloured cherry tomatoes, cut in half if very big.
75g crumbled blue cheese
Sea salt.
Focaccia with cherry tomatoes, garlic, rosemary and blue cheese
Method
If making this recipe with sourdough, then start the process off the night before you want to bake the focaccia. See my recipe for Classic Sourdough Made Easy. If you are making this recipe with standard yeast dough, make sure it has had one prove after mixing and kneading and is well risen before proceeding with step 2 below.
- Take a large baking sheet/tray and cover it with baking paper. I used a 30cm (12″) x 20cm (8″) baking tray when I made this recipe. Drizzle generously with olive oil over the baking paper.
- Gently ease the bread dough onto the oiled baking tray, using a scraper or spatula, being careful not to knock the air bubbles out of the dough. Turn the dough over so it is covered on both sides in olive oil.
- Then, gently stretch it to a rectangular shape. It WON’T fill the baking tray at this stage, so don’t worry, but it will rise and spread after its final prove/rise.
- Cover with a plastic bag or some cling film and set to one side for 2 hours for its final prove and rise before baking.
- Whilst the bread dough is proving, prepare and assemble all of your topping ingredients together.
- Pre-heat the oven to 220C (Fan 200C)/450F/Gas mark 7.
- Once the dough has almost doubled in size, gently pull it to fill the baking tray if necessary and make dimples in the dough using your fingertips.
- Drizzle over more olive oil and press the garlic slices and rosemary into the dimples.
- Add the cherry tomatoes and blue cheese.
- Drizzle more olive oil over the top, sprinkle some sea salt over the top.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and well risen, turning the heat down to 200C (Fan 180C)/400C/Gas mark 6 after 5 minutes of baking. NB: If your oven has a hot spot or has uneven heat distribution, turn the focaccia around half way through baking.
- Remove from the oven and gently slide onto a wire cooling rack. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes before cutting into squares and serving.
Thank you to Karen for this delicious Focaccia recipe submission!
Karen is a Freelance Food & Travel Writer, Food Stylist, Photographer & Recipe Developer. If you would like to see more recipes, please visit her website: Lavender and Lovage
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