How to bake Foccacia Bread

I’ve only learnt to appreciate how good various kinds of bread are since moving to New Zealand some 10 years ago.

My childhood spent in Manila was focused around the Philippines’ (and I must say the whole of Asia!) daily staple of rice. We had rice morning, noon and night just as Kiwis have their bread and potatoes. Even our desserts used rice as its key ingredient.

Fast forward to 2012 and here I am, experimenting on various kinds of breads like a true Kiwi

We still have rice 3-4x a week but we no longer have them for breakfast and rarely at lunch time too!

Apart from my favourite pandesal, focaccia bread is my next favourite type of bread. I love that its crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy on the inside. It’s really yummy and I’m glad I got my hands on a recipe for this.

Here’s how I make foccacia bread using a breadmaker. Sorry, I can’t live without my breadmaker!

Ingredients:

2 tsp Surebake yeast
450 g white flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp butter (15 g)
1 tbsp milk powder (I use Anchor milk powder)
1 tsp salt
300 ml water

Instructions

1. If you’re using a breadmaker, chuck in the ingredients according to the suggested recommendation of your brand of breadmaker. For mine, it recommends the following:

Liquid goes in first followed by any oils or butter then powdered items. Always chuck in the yeast last.

2. Set the breadmaker into the ‘dough’ cycle. It normally takes about an hour and a half for the machine to do its thing.

Once its done, the dough looks like this:

3. The dough should be a bit wet (sticky even!) and elastic. Place it on a lightly greased tray and shape to a rectangular form. I normally use a baking mat on top of baking tray as shown below:

3. Dimple the top every 6cm by pressing your finger well into the dough.

4. Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. To ensure that the dough gets a chance to rise in the cooler months here in Christchurch, I pop the covered tray inside the oven (that is turned off!).

5. I normally set the oven alarm for 20 minutes and when that pings, I then turn on the oven to preheat.

You must know, I have 2 ovens. I let the dough rise on one and turn on the other to preheat to 200C. It takes about 10 or so minutes for my oven to reach the desired temperature.

6. While you’re also waiting for the dough to rise, use the time to combine the following:

2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme

7. Once the 30-minute rising time is up, take the cover off the dough and using a baking brush, brush the surface of the dough with the combined mixture.

I forgot to take a photo of my dough all ‘brushed up’ but here it is above all risen and brushed with the mixture. You have to brush the entire thing!

8. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. In my oven, it takes about 22 minutes to bake and turn into golden brown

Ta-dah! Freshly baked focaccia bread Dip in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and shredded parmesan cheese for extra yumminess. You can also just have it with margarine or butter. Either way, I assure you the bread will taste divine.