Focaccia Bread
This is my favorite garden picture taken several years ago when we had monster tomato plants.
During the summer, I can’t wait to use my fresh basil and tomatoes for focaccia bread. I’ve used jars of yeast over the years with this recipe. And right now, tomatoes are plentiful in gardens and farmer’s markets. and our family has already enjoyed a few loaves.
Plan ahead
Like most bread recipes, you will need to start this recipe about two hours before you plan on enjoying. But the prep work is worth this delicious bread that can’t be replicated in stores.
Dipping sauce
Picking a yummy piece (which is all of them!)
With the cheese melted on top, I usually just enjoy warm slices and omit the dipping sauce; however, I occasionally crave some pizza sauce to complement the bread, especially for the butts. Occasionally I’ve even made this my meal.
In a future blog post, I’ll share our family’s homemade pizza sauce recipe. I have yet to taste another sauce to compare to its rich flavor!
Perfect in the fall too
We always have lots of green tomatoes before temperatures dip below freezing. Every year, we collect all the green tomatoes and place on cardboard in our basement to ripen. One year we had tomatoes ripening all the way to Christmas!
If you’re a snob about vine ripened tomatoes (i.e. that fresh are far superior than store-bought) like my husband, a good way to use the non-vine ripened tomatoes is for focaccia bread in addition to throwing in chili or sloppy joes.
Since we often pot some basil to protect it from the cold temperatures in the fall, we also have fresh basil well into the winter for our focaccia bread. Here’s some tips on growing basil indoors.
Transformed to pizza dough
I have plenty of “help” kneading the dough.
I love this recipe so much that, I started even using for my pizza dough recipe. I often quadruple the recipe so I can make a couple of pizzas and a loaf of foccacia bread for the next day. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite pizza concoctions in future blog posts - and you’ll be surprised with the creativity!
Foccacia Bread Recipe
1 cup warm (150F) water
3 T active dry yeast
1 T sugar
2 T Italian seasoning
Dash pepper
1 t salt
1 t garlic powder
2 T olive oil, divided
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tomato sliced
10 fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
Add spices and sugar.
Stir in whole wheat flour and 1 T olive oil.
Stir in as much flour as you can then knead for 5 minutes - dough should remain sticky.
Put 1 T of olive oil in a bowl and roll the dough ball in the oil so it doesn’t stick to the bowl.
Allow the dough to rest covered for 30 min in a warm place.
Turn the dough and place on a lightly greased 9x13 pan. Top with basil leaves and cover each basil leaf with a tomato.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400F for 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out dry.
Immediately top with the two cheeses.