Easy focaccia

I was given a really nice pancake pan. So now, while I’m on holiday with Ninka, every other day (mustn’t spoil ourselves 😉 our breakfast looks like this. The usual pancake arrangement goes like this: I stand at the stove turning out one batch after another of pancakes, and everyone else scoffs them as they come. By the end everyone’s stuffed and I’ve had maybe one pancake. The one I tasted to make sure I hadn’t forgotten an ingredient.

Forgive the pancake preamble. I’ll get to the focaccia in a minute, of course, but let me finish. I’ve just finished making pancakes, so bear with me for a moment :p

This time I tried a completely different tactic. I got up reasonably early today (for a Saturday), got everything ready in advance and had a whole plate of pancakes waiting before everyone sat down. I ate two whole ones (and at least I ate like a human being, off a plate, with strawberries and icing sugar, instead of on the fly between ladles of batter hitting the pan :)!

I’ve been experimenting with pancakes a little lately, too. I put new things in the batter: honey, crumbled Snickers or Twix bars, fruit. So even though Ninka asks for them practically every day, they’re a little different each time. Worth experimenting.

But why am I writing about pancakes in a focaccia recipe? Because once I had everything ready this morning, the rest of the household was still asleep, so I had a little time to add new recipes to the site (well, one so far, as you can see). I actually made this focaccia a good month ago. But before I could finish typing up the recipe, everyone got up. So I had to take a compulsory pancake break from writing, and you from reading 🙂 Mystery solved.

[This is where a poem about a secret, brought back from a trip to Zanzibar, was supposed to go, but it was censored on grounds of state secrecy.]

OK. Back to the focaccia, or rather, let’s start on the focaccia. I urgently needed a side dish for Ninka’s dinner (somehow those sweet, fragrant, creamy new potatoes didn’t suit her). And I was still exploring the possibilities of Italian flour with yeast already in it. It takes very little time and some really basic ingredients to make a pizza-like Italian bread any child will love. I’m pretty sure no grown-up would turn it down either.

What else is there to say? This rosemary focaccia is incredibly simple. Easily good enough for a lovely snack, though. Give it a go.

At a glance: 

Prep time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 12–15 minutes

Oven temperature: 215 degrees Celsius

Serves: several (at least 3)

Calories: apparently Italian dishes don’t count calories

Ingredients for a quick flatbread:

• 200 grams Italian pizza and focaccia flour with yeast already added
• a tablespoon of olive oil (for the dough) and two tablespoons (for brushing the flatbread)
• just under half a glass of cool (not cold) water (so you don’t have to add too much extra flour)
• a pinch of salt
• a teaspoon of sugar
• dried rosemary (as much as you like, to taste)

Method (quick and easy, a rectangular tin comes in handy):

I put the flour, salt, sugar and rosemary in a deep bowl (use as much rosemary as you like. If you put a lot in, you’ll really taste it, so it’s up to you). I added the water and oil and mixed with a spoon. The dough was too wet, so I added a bit more flour. I turned it out onto the worktop and got straight to kneading it into a soft, elastic dough (it takes about 10 minutes. For the dough to work, remember it needs to be smooth throughout).

I spread the dough over the bottom of a rectangular baking tin (see the photo below), keeping it no more than about 1 cm thick. I brushed the top with olive oil, making sure to cover the whole flatbread.

Important: there’s no need to let the dough rise. I heated the oven to 215 degrees Celsius and put in the tin with the focaccia dough. I baked it for about 12–15 minutes (keep checking how it’s doing, as the time depends a lot on how thickly you’ve spread the dough). Around 7–8 minutes into baking I opened the oven and brushed the flatbread with olive oil again.

Once it was baked, I took it out of the oven and sliced it. All done. Enjoy!