Monday, August 8, 2011

Fresh From the Oven: Focaccia Bread

I am a carb fanatic. There I said it. I love bread, potatoes, pastas. For a long time I have wanted to learn to make my own bread since so many store bought ones contain dairy. That and there is no better cooking smell than that of bread baking in the oven. I am not sure what's been holding me back, but most likely it's simply been the amount of time it takes to make bread. With kids (especially 3), time is at a premium most days! My favorite brand of flour is the King Arthur brand, mostly because I can buy it in bulk. One day I stumbled across their website, which is a wealth of bread recipes. Any kind of bread you would ever want to make- the recipe is there. It's a very well laid out website, the instructions are very easy to understand, and there are tips from others that are extremely helpful.

I served this with our Sunday dinner of my Homemade Spaghetti and Meatsauce.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
Dried herbs of your choice (I used garlic powder and dried Rosemary this time)



Directions:
1) Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan, and drizzle 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil in the bottom.

2) Combine all of the ingredients, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 60 seconds.

3) Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan, cover the pan, and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes, till it's become puffy.



4) While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F.

5) Gently poke the dough all over with your index finger.

6) Drizzle it lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with the dried herbs of your choice, if desired.



7) Bake the bread till it's golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.

8) Remove it from the oven, wait 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.


(Not sure why this picture turned out bad, other than I am still learning how to use my new fancy camera)

This was so good and sooo easy! It will definitely be a staple in our house from now on! Next time I am going to change up the herbs and spices and see what I can come up with:-)

This recipe is directly from King Arthur Flour's website. Changes I made were the garlic powder and dried herbs

1 comment:

  1. Ohhhhhhh my gosh, this looks sooo good!! :)

    Hope you are good - I'm a bad blog friend right now, been so busy!

    ReplyDelete