Focaccia

I make my own bread, but today I didn't want to make my usual fairly plain sandwich loaf.  Although it's delicious, and a pretty fail-safe recipe, I just liked the idea of doing something a little different for our sandwiches.  Focaccia is very similar to a pizza dough, just without the toppings, and works beautifully filled with your favourite sandwich fixings.  We actually had some for dinner as a sort of Philly cheesesteak but with leftover meatloaf sliced up inside along with fried onions and provolone cheese melted on the top - it's sounds kind of strange but turned out surprising well.  This recipe originally came from Julie Van Rosendaal's book 'Grazing' - a food bible for anyone who likes 'snack' food (among other things :o)

Focaccia
1 'loaf'

3/4 cup warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
a pinch of black pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil

topping
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
sprinkling of italian seasoning
coarse salt

• Combine the water and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer; sprinkle with the yeast and let stand until foamy, about 5-10 minutes. (If the yeast doesn't foam, it could mean that either the water was too hot and killed the yeast, or your yeast may be inactive, in which case all you can do I'm afraid is buy new).
• add 2 cups of the flour, salt, pepper and olive oil, and using the dough hook on your mixer on a low speed, mix until all ingredients are combined and it forms a soft ball - add more of the flour in 1/4 cup increments if the mixture is too moist and is sticking to the bowl.
• mix / knead for a couple of minutes in the stand mixer, until it's smooth and elastic.
• transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, turning the ball of dough to cover all over with oil; cover with a tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size - about 45 minutes.
• pat the dough into a 9" x 10" disc on a baking sheet.
• poke holes with your fingers all over the top and drizzle with oil, garlic, italian seasoning and salt.
• cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave to rise for an hour, until doubled in size.
• preheat the oven to 400 F.
• bake for 20-30 minutes, until it's golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Focaccia ingredients.

let the yeast foam up before adding the other ingredients - this was as it started foaming.

if you don't have a stand mixer, mixing by hand works fine too.

turn the ball of dough a couple of times to coat with oil.

doubled in size.

press it out into either one large flat bread as this, or divide the dough and make individual serving size breads.

a simple flat bread that can be used for sandwiches or even torn up to accompany a dip.