Monday, August 4, 2014

Focaccia = 0, Flatbread = 1


I'm a little behind on posting my July's ABC baking challenge results because I was away on vacation. But here it is, a roasted vegetable focaccia bread that truly was a challenge for me. Yeast-based foods tend to scare me a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat them but making a homemade loaf of bread is a whole other matter. I've also been hit or miss with focaccia bread... a few times it came out perfectly and then other times it came out crispy... like this time.


This recipe came from the King Arthur Flour site, as are all the ABC recipes this year. Previously I've made focaccia bread using this recipe from Better Homes & Gardens so I was a little surprised by The King Arthur Flour recipe because it seemed so much more complicated. It also involved powdered milk, which is not a pantry staple for me and was something I had to seek out. And as many of you know, I keep my pantry well stocked so this was a bit frustrating to buy a whole bag of powdered milk for only 2 tablespoons!


The other issue I have with yeast is it takes hours to develop, whereas baking soda can give you a quick-bread in minutes. Patience and time are a struggle for me and this recipe required me to give a lot of my time. If I had been home all day it would've been fine for me to punch down the bread, let it rise, punch it down again, let it rise again, and then spread it out and let it rise yet again. But I wasn't. In fact, I was at the beach and I had a lovely time. And I don't regret one minute that this "focaccia" bread turned into more of a flatbread and we didn't eat it until 8pm! See? No patience. No regrets. It still tasted lovely.

I really followed the King Arthur Flour recipe, so I won't post the entire recipe here. Although I did do a slightly different topping with caramelized onions, roasted zucchini and parmesan cheese. Before I went to the beach, I caramelized 3 medium-sized onions with a dash of seasoned olive oil (similar to these). When I came back from the beach, I roasted 3 smallish zucchini's with more of the seasoned olive oil, salt and pepper. Immediately after the bread came out of the oven, I generously covered the top with shredded parmesan cheese. The combination of caramelized onions, roasted zucchini and parmesan cheese worked so well together that it turned this failed focaccia into a flatbread win.

Are there any recipes or food groups that are a challenge for you to cook/bake?

7 comments:

  1. I think I would have preferred being at the beach than making this focaccia too! Your topping sounds fabulous and despite what you said, your focaccia looks great!

    Cookie baking is a particular challenge for me. Having the oven on for hours, baking batch after batch...it's just not for me....and if they need to be decorated, they just won't get made!

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    1. Thank you Zosia for your encouragement! I guess we all have our strengths when it comes to baking/cooking. I read somewhere that there's a big difference between bread bakers and cake bakers and I think it's true.

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  2. Great minds think alike. I was going to add caramelized onions as well but ran out of time. Your flatbread looks great. I thought 18x13 was a little too large and feared it would result in a very thin focaccia, so I made it a bit smaller.
    I used to be a complete yeast phobe. I kept trying and didn't give up despite the various failures. Now I bake my own bread. Haven't bought bread at the store for almost two years now :) That bag of powdered milk will come in handy if you choose to practice more bread baking.

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    1. Hanaa, that's a good point, I probably should've kept it smaller. And thanks for the tip, I'll try my hand at some more breads and will use the powdered milk.

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  3. The bread looks wonderful, but your caption says it all.
    Mine didn't turn out good. Have been pretty successful with yeast, but lately seem to be failing at it.

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    1. Well Sunita, this recipe got the best of us this time. Maybe we'll get it on the next go-around.

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