Food Republik » bread

Strawberry Focaccia with Balsamic Onions

Camilla — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:44:46 +0000

Weird? Exciting? Delicious? Strawberries and onions? Together? On bread?

I usually like sweet and savory things together, so this recipe that came to my inbox from Saveur.com intrigued me. I sometimes make a rosemary focaccia that is pretty easy, so I figured this recipe wouldn’t be too difficult. And it’s not. If you’re intimidated by yeast breads, focaccia is a great place to start. The dough only has to rise for an hour or so, so it’s quite doable even on a weeknight. Once you’ve got the dough ready, it’s just a matter of slicing the strawberries and caramelizing the onions with balsamic vinegar.

While the original recipe called for maple syrup, I just used honey and it turned out fine. I didn’t even caramelize the onions as long as the recipe suggested – 5 minutes was enough to get my onions browned, and then a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and honey into the hot pan made them sweet-tart and caramel-colored.

The hubs said, “What, this isn’t dessert?”. Then, “It’s…interesting.”

He asked me to pack him a piece in his lunchbox though, so he must have liked it after all.

Me, I like anything to do with bread.

Strawberry Focaccia with Honey-Balsamic Onions
Adapted from Saveur

For Bread:
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 cup warm water (100-110F)
1 tsp honey
2 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup strong/bread flour and 1 1/2 cups all-purpose)
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra

For Topping:
1 medium sweet onion, quartered and sliced thin
2 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tsp honey
1 cup strawberries, hulled and sliced
8-10 basil leaves, sliced (I used rosemary instead, but basil is probably better)
sea salt
extra olive oil

Mix yeast, warm water, and honey together. Set aside until foamy, then add olive oil. Mix together flour and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the yeast/oil mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon until dough pulls together (it will be sticky). Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Grease a bowl with olive oil and put the dough back into the bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm location, until doubled, about 1 hour.

Grease a 9×13 baking sheet with olive oil. Press dough into pan, making indentations with fingers. Brush with another tbsp olive oil and let rise another 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450F.

Meanwhile, heat a tbsp of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add sliced onions and cook gently until browned and caramelized (10 minutes or so). Add balsamic vinegar and honey to onions and continue to cook until most of liquid has evaporated and onions are sticky and deep brown.

Scatter strawberries, onions, and basil over unbaked focaccia. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt. Bake for 20 minutes until top of focaccia is browned.

Best Ever Banana Bread

Camilla — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:20:08 +0000

Back in my single days when I had just arrived in China, fresh from college and ready to teach English, I hadn’t a clue about baking. I don’t think I had ever baked anything in my life except peanut butter cookies and a failed, stone-heavy yogurt cake. All through college in Toronto I had survived on stir-fries and cheap take-out from the Chinese BBQ place downstairs (they would give you a big styrofoam box of rice with slices of BBQ pork and duck on top, and douse it with a generous ladleful of sauce. The sauce was the best. That $4.25 box of meat and rice could last me a couple of meals, if there was enough sauce to go with the rice).

But when I arrived in China I discovered that my roommate Andrea was a talented cook, who loved to putter around the kitchen and decorated her room with creative paper cutouts – a domestic soul, something I wasn’t really used to among my friends from Toronto. She was from a town and family where, apparently, they taught you to cook. I was a skill-less city girl, ready to rough it in China. I didn’t realize then that I would grow to love cooking, baking, and decorating too (though that took another couple of years, when I got married)!

Andrea taught me to make this banana bread in our tiny little Chinese kitchen. We had no oven, just two flukey toaster ovens. One of them was tiny and would never fit a loaf pan inside, and the other one’s lower element was broken. We had to cover our brownies with foil to prevent the top from burning before the bottom was done. But it worked. And now, I figure that if I can bake banana bread in a toaster oven in China, I can bake anything.

Andrea’s aunt developed this banana bread recipe, experimenting with all the ingredients to get the perfect balance of moistness and flavor. It became a treasured family recipe that Andrea graciously shared with me. It’s a super easy, classic quick bread recipe, one that even I, a total noob, learned in a jiffy.

I’ve made a few changes over the years – I’ve grown accustomed to less sweetness, so I reduced the sugar a bit, and I’ve started making it with part whole wheat flour and olive oil – but the framework of the recipe is the same. Sometimes I like to toss in a handful of dried cranberries, but you can do it just plain or add walnuts if you like.

Andrea’s Best Ever Banana Bread
Makes 2 medium loaves

4 ripe large bananas
4 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar + 1 tbsp
1 cup olive oil (not extra-virgin)
½ cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (you can sub part with whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking soda
dash salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Mash the bananas in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, olive oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and 1 ½ cups sugar. Mix together thoroughly.

2. In a small cup, mix the baking soda with some of the flour. Then dump all of the flour, with the baking soda, and salt, on top of the wet ingredients. Stir until everything is well moistened.

3. Butter two medium loaf pans. Pour the batter into the pans and sprinkle tops of loaves with remaining tablespoon of sugar. Bake for 60 minutes or longer, until a tester inserted into loaves comes out clean. Depending on your oven, though, you’ll want to check these at 50 minutes to be sure – there’s nothing worse than overcooked banana bread!

Zucchini Bread

Camilla — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:39:16 +0000

Well, it’s a windy, blustery day that is leaving our patio plants in disarray. One of those days where you feel autumn is in the air and you want to curl up with a hot cup of chai and a warm cinnamony snack. Speaking of chai – I love tea, but what on earth happened to saucers??? I mean, where am I supposed to leave my soggy tea-bag if I want to reuse it for a second cup? I have to get out a separate salad plate to put my tea bag on while I’m drinking my first cup of tea? Seriously, they don’t make cups like they used to.

Confession – before I made this zucchini bread, I had never eaten zucchini bread before. So I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like. Now, I’ve discovered that I LOVE zucchini bread! It’s like carrot cake, but with delicious, in-season and dirt-cheap zucchinis (69 cents a pound at my local grocery). Keep the skin on, and you’ll get even more vitamins and minerals (zucchinis are a good source of Vitamin C, folate, potassium, Vitamin A and beta-carotene).

The base recipe for this bread was a Paula Deen recipe (what? It was the first recipe that came up on Google, ok?), though I’ve modified it quite a bit.

(Long list of alterations coming up; skip this paragraph if that’s boring for you) I swapped the water for buttermilk and replaced some of the white flour with whole-wheat. I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil, and reduced the sugar by a whole cup while at the same time swapping half of the white sugar for brown. I kind of hate nutmeg (sorry nutmeg lovers!) so I upped the amount of cinnamon, omitted the nutmeg, and added a teensy bit of ground cloves.

The result is a deliciously moist cake that is not too sweet, perfect for making…Zucchini Bread French Toast!!! An absolutely delicious way of eating zucchini bread.

In fact, my craving for zucchini bread french toast is so strong that I’ve got another batch of zucchini bread in the oven right now.

For those of you who are blessed with gardens overflowing with zucchini – I’m jealous, and this is a perfect way to use up your veggies. Though of course, if you have a garden overflowing with zucchini, I’m sure you’ve already made a gazillion batches of zucchini bread, and you’re rolling your eyes right now saying, “so what, zucchini bread, whoo hoo”.

Well, try it as French toast and let me know what you think. I adore it. The egg forms a crisp crust on the outside of the bread and the inside of the bread is meltingly moist and soft with cinnamon and spice. Serve it with sliced strawberries and bananas, and the whole thing is worthy of a déjeuner chez Cora’s (a French Canadian chain of breakfast restaurants – yay Canada!).

Zucchini Bread
Adapted from a Paula Deen recipe. You can, of course, add walnuts or pecans if you wish.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup white sugar + 1 tablespoon
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 medium zucchinis, grated (about 2 cups)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup olive oil
4 large eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sprinkle lemon juice on the grated zucchinis to keep them green.
2. Combine the zucchinis, olive oil, eggs and buttermilk.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, sugars, and salt.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir together until moistened and more or less combined.
5. Pour into 2 greased medium loaf pans. Sprinkle loaves with remaining tablespoon white sugar. Bake in oven for about 1 hour (check at 50 minutes), until tester inserted into middle of cake comes out clean.

Zucchini Bread French Toast
Serves 2

4 slices zucchini bread
3 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons whole milk
salt

Beat the eggs with the milk and a pinch of salt. Dunk the zucchini bread slices into the egg mixture before frying on a non-stick griddle over medium heat, about 2 minutes per side until golden brown.

Serve with fresh fruit and honey or syrup.

No-Knead Bread

Camilla — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:26:24 +0000

Guys, guys…I am so excited!

It all started a couple days ago when Chris and I were at Marshalls and saw…guess what? This 5.5 quart Le Creuset French Oven!!! I know, at Marshalls! It was…well you know they’re never dirt cheap, but this was definitely a bargain. If any of you are near the Marshalls in Arroyo Grande, head over there – they might still be there. They had about 5 or 6 of them last weekend. Of course they might all be gone now…but who knows?

So after picking up this dream item in a beautiful fire engine red, I headed home to test it out. Guess what was the first recipe that came to mind? Okay, yes, it was Beef Bourgignon. But guess what was the SECOND recipe that came to mind? The beautiful loaf you see below. NO KNEAD BREAD.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept behind no-knead bread. A wet dough, baked in a dutch oven, that magically comes out crispy on the outside, and light and airy and tender on the inside. Could it be possible? For the longest time I couldn’t try out the recipe, first because I was living in China and owned only a toaster oven and a single hot plate, and then because I had no dutch oven or other heavy casserole. Finally! My day has come!

I still can hardly believe that I really baked this loaf of bread. It hardly seemed to take any effort. For those of you not familiar with no-knead bread, basically the steps go like this. You take some flour, some warm water, salt and just a little bit of yeast. You mix it all together to make a wet, shaggy dough. You let this gooey mixture rest in a warm place for oh, about 18 hours. When it’s risen and full of little bubbles, you gently fold it down on itself, shape it into a ball, and let it rise 2 more hours. Then you bake it in a preheated dutch oven, first covered, then uncovered for the last half hour. Baking it first in a covered oven gives the crust the moisture it needs to become thick and crispy, while baking it with the cover off browns it and crisps it up the rest of the way.

Beautiful.

I was impressed with my first try. The only thing I might do differently next time is…well, I didn’t salt it well enough. Which is fine if you put some salted butter on it, but while the texture came out perfect, the taste of just the plain bread was just an iota bland. I didn’t measure out one teaspoon like I should have. I just sprinkled and guesstimated. My bad.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to making bakery-quality bread in my own kitchen! Thank you, Le Creuset. Thank you, Marshalls. Thank you, Jim Lahey and Matt Bittman.

No-Knead Bread
From Jim Lahey and Matt Bittman’s recipe

3 cups bread flour
1 5/8 cups lukewarm water (I just went slightly over the 1 ½ cup mark)
¼ teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt

1. Mix together all of the above ingredients in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise for the next 12-18 hours, preferably 18.

2. When dough is ready, it will be riddled with holes and bubbles and expanded to over twice its former size. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface, and gently fold the two sides over (like a brochure). Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest another 15 minutes.

3. Dust a kitchen towel (not terry) with flour and place in a bowl. Shape the dough into a ball and place it, seam side down, into the cloth lined bowl. Cover with another cloth. Let rise in a warm place for another two hours, until doubled.

4. Half an hour before dough is finished rising, preheat the oven and place a dutch oven or other heavy casserole dish, with the cover on, in the oven to heat up.

5. Carefully remove the hot casserole from oven. Turn the risen dough ball into the hot dish. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove lid and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until browned.

6. Let cool on a rack before cutting into it. Listen to the crackle of the crust as the steam escapes. That means a crispy crust.

Apple and Dried Cherry Bread Pudding

Camilla — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:04:08 +0000

I’ve never been a bread pudding girl. I still remember when I made one for the first time, when I was about 13 years old, from one of those spiral bound “My First Cookbook” type things. It was a plain bread pudding with slices of white bread soaked in the eggy custard. And I remember being bitterly disappointed. For some reason, I had expected the custard to be loose and creamy, like those Jell-O puddings you buy in cups in the store! The slightly firm custard of the bread pudding didn’t seem like much of a pudding to me.

Since then, my tastes have grown up a little bit (thankfully!), but I’ve still never really been drawn to bread pudding. I guess in my mind, I thought, “Been there, done that.”

When finally this morning I was looking for something to use up my stock of dried cherries, and all the recipes on Epicurious that used dried cherries seemed to be bread puddings! So I choose what seemed a likely one, a cinnamon-raisin bread pudding with apples, added my dried cherries to the mix, and tadaa!

It was surprisingly good, actually. The apples are a nice counterpoint to the creamy custard, cutting the richness a little bit. Next time, I’ll add some cinnamon to give it more of a jolt. And I think the cherries work well with the apples, though next time I’ll be sure to use sour cherries instead of sweet to give a little more complexity to this sweet dish.

So, the bread pudding was a qualified success. The few little changes I mentioned might put it over the top and make it really delicious, but as is, it was pretty good.

Apple and Dried Cherry Bread Pudding
Adapted from Gourmet 2005

2 Gala apples, peeled and chopped
8 slices cinnamon raisin bread
½ cup dried unsweetened cherries
3 cups half-and-half (or 1 ½ cups each of milk and whipping cream)
½ cup and 3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
6 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 F and butter two pie plates or one 9×13” dish.

Toss the apples with the 3 tbsp sugar and cook in a saucepan over med-low heat until golden and just tender (10-15 min).

Cut bread into 1.5 inch squares and toast in oven until browned and crisp.

Mix together the half-and-half (or cream and milk), vanilla, eggs, ½ cup sugar, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl.

Toss together the bread and apples and arrange in the pie plates or baking dish. Sprinkle with dried cherries. Pour custard mixture over the bread mixture and let sit for 15-20 minutes, pressing on bread every so often to help submerge it.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until custard is set around sides but still a little jiggly in the middle. Let cool (custard will continue to set as it sits) and serve.

Hot Cross Buns

Camilla — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:29:22 +0000

I love the smell of hot cross buns – yeasty bread coupled with cinnamon and spice. I’ve never made them before, but this recipe from a chef named Bron Marshall was super easy, and these were delicious for brunch with some butter and honey.

My family was never one to follow a lot of old Easter traditions – after all, my parents were immigrants in a new land, and the only old traditions we had were things like Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival and whatnot. So I had no idea what the whole hot cross bun thing was supposed to symbolize, or even that you were supposed to eat them at Easter. To be honest, I just liked the taste of the store-bought buns, microwaved until hot and steaming. My tastes have grown up a little since then, and these fresh-baked ones were just the thing.

According to Wikipedia, hot cross buns were the object of many superstitions. According to one, if you bake and serve hot cross buns on Good Friday, those buns will not spoil or get moldy for the following year. Uh…I’m not going to see if that one’s true. They’re also supposed to help people recover from illness if you give one to a sick person as a gift.

I didn’t have bread flour, so I used all-purpose, and I did feel that the buns were lacking a bit of chewiness and mouthfeel. But the end result was still delicious, and my husband devoured them over a couple of days.

These buns aren’t very sweet, so they benefit from a sweet glaze, or as we did, spread with a little wildflower honey.

Bron Marshall’s Hot Cross Buns Recipe

I followed this recipe pretty much to the letter, except for using cranberries instead of currants, so I’m just linking it above instead of typing it out again!

Rosemary and Gouda Buttermilk Biscuits

Camilla — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:26:16 +0000

I felt like scones this morning (my husband would say, “But you don’t look like one!”), but I didn’t want to use the recipe I normally use, which is for a sweet scone with currants. I was craving something more savory. Half an hour of experimentation in the kitchen, and I came up with THESE!

Now, not to toot my own horn, but these are, I think, the best biscuits I’ve ever made (by the way, what’s the difference between scones and biscuits? I have no idea.).

Using buttermilk instead of milk made the biscuits more tender and moist, and the addition of the Gouda cheese and rosemary satisfied my salty cravings and (in my opinion), upped the “foodie factor” as well. Finally, using baking soda as well as baking powder (baking soda needs to react with an acid, so I could use it since there was buttermilk in the dough) seemed to make the biscuits lighter and fluffier.

The resulting biscuits were rich, tender, and as savory as I could desire. Try them and let me know what you think!

Rosemary and Gouda Buttermilk Biscuits
Makes 8 biscuits

1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
5 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2/3 cup buttermilk (you can make your own buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of lemon juice to 2/3 cup milk and letting it sit for 5 minutes)
1/3 cup Gouda cheese, finely diced or grated
1 1/2tsp dried rosemary (double the amount if you use fresh)
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp milk for brushing

Preheat oven to 400 F (about 200 C).

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour using your fingertips, until the mixture becomes a fine crumble, like cornmeal.

Crumble the rosemary needles in your hand and add them to the mixture. Add the cheese and toss to combine.

Pour in the buttermilk and fold in gently with a spatula until mixture forms a sticky dough. Divide roughly into 8 and drop onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for about 12 minutes until golden on top or a toothpick comes out clean.

These are best fresh out of the oven of course, though I suppose you could reheat them gently later in the day. Definitely best when the cheese is bubbling and melted though!

Two Pumpkin Bread Recipes Compared…And the winner is…

Camilla — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:58:28 +0000

About a week ago, I decided to try making my own pumpkin purée and then a pumpkin bread recipe. When you live in China, keeping Western seasonal traditions alive (such as making pumpkin recipes in the fall around Halloween and Thanksgiving) seems much more important for some reason.

So first, I peeled a Chinese pumpkin, cut it into chunks, and roasted it in my toaster oven. Then I mashed it up with a fork, and threw it in the blender for a few whirls to smooth it out. Then, I looked up a pumpkin bread recipe on Epicurious.com, and came up with this Walnut-Cranberry Pumpkin Loaf.

The resulting loaf turned out pretty good – very moist and dense, and pretty much everything pumpkin bread should be. We enjoyed it, shared it with friends, and it was gone within a day.

But then, a few days later, I made these pumpkin muffins. I needed to use up the leftover pumpkin purée that I had in the fridge, and an easy quick-bread recipe was up on the Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen site. Quick breads are awesome when you don’t have an electric beater – made with oil instead of butter, you can mix the whole thing up with a wooden spoon in next to no time. So I sort of blended this recipe and my own favorite banana bread recipe (which is amazing and I will tell you about it soon, promise).

The resulting pumpkin muffins? Tender, fluffy and light, but still rich and moist. So different from the pumpkin loaf I made earlier, but so, so good.

So the verdict is… dum dum dum…

The quick-bread recipe was faster, easier, and the muffins stayed moist longer. I think it wins as my go-to recipe for something simple and fast. The recipe also worked well for a muffin (light and fluffy), and we like the portability of muffins.

The cranberry pumpkin bread was good too, if you like a denser, more rustic loaf, but took a little more elbow grease (creaming butter and sugar together without an electric mixer). This recipe is a little too dense for muffins, I think, but who’s to stop you from trying?

Quick-Bread Pumpkin Muffins
adapted from Tracy at Tasty Kitchen

1 ½ cup flour
pinch of salt
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup pumpkin
½ cup oil
2 eggs
¼ cup buttermilk
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¾ tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 F or 175 C. In large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, eggs, buttermilk, sugars, salt and spices.

Measure out one cup of flour in a dry measuring cup, and level the top with a knife. Dump this on top of the wet ingredients. Then measure the remaining ½ cup flour, and mix the baking soda into the flour, right in the measuring cup. Add this to the wet ingredients too. Mix everything together until smooth. (Look! A one-bowl recipe!)

Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for about an hour or until a wooden pick inserted into cake comes out clean. If you’re making muffins, you’ll probably just need to bake them for 20 to 25 minutes. Check at the 15-minute mark, and continue checking every few minutes after that. Don’t overbake them or they may be dry.

Pumpkin Cranberry-Walnut Bread
Adapted from Epicurious.com

I have adjusted the level of spices for this recipe, as most reviewers said the original recipe didn’t have enough flavor.

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon, 1.5 tsp ginger, ¾ tsp nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar (or mix of brown and white sugars)
2 large eggs
1 generous cup baked fresh pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a loaf pan and line with parchment if you wish.

Mix dry ingredients – flour, spices, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.

Beat butter in a separate bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating until pale yellow and incorporated. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in pumpkin and vanilla.

Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Scrape batter into pan. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon white sugar.

Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Cool for about 15 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely (this is why lining the pan with parchment paper is a good idea).

Rosemary Focaccia

Camilla — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:51:59 +0000

Don’t get me started on sandwich bread in China.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not necessarily bad… It’s just…not good.

Most sandwich bread sold in our city (Xiamen, in case you weren’t paying attention) is the really soft, somewhat oily kind, with an unmistakably sweet flavor that kind of makes you go “huh” and really, really miss home, where the bread aisle (a whole aisle for bread, hallelujah!) is filled with hundreds of kinds of bread: whole wheat, whole grain, multi-grain, oatmeal, rye, country, Texas toast, Italian, pumpernickel… Oh my, do we miss the bread at home.

So what do you do when the only thing available is Chinese sandwich bread, and your husband is something of a sandwich connoisseur, and you have nothing with which to make him a lunch sandwich?

Why, you make your own of course! Which is how I came to make this deliciously fantastic rosemary focaccia bread, which is just the thing for your ravenous sandwich-loving hubby at lunchtime.

Rosemary Focaccia
Cobbled together from a few recipes

When you live in China, anything resembling a real oven is difficult to come by, and all of our baked goods are baked in a tiny little Chinese toaster oven. Therefore, the measurements for this recipe are for a small focaccia (about 8 x 12), just enough for two or three people for lunch. If you want to make a bigger focaccia, just double everything except the yeast, and let it rise for an hour instead of ½ hour.

1 pkg (about 2 ¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
salt
sea salt
warm water
1 tsp dried rosemary
2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for greasing

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in ½ cup of warm water (about 40-45 degrees C…which I figure is about the temperature of a hot Jacuzzi). Let stand till foamy, 5-10 min.

In a large bowl, mix the flour and ½ tsp salt. Add the yeast mixture and stir to combine. Gradually add water, a tablespoon at a time, until dough is moistened enough to pull together and form a ball. In the same bowl, knead dough about 1 minute, until smooth.

Remove dough, and oil the same bowl with some olive oil (see, a one-bowl recipe!). Put the ball of dough back into the bowl, turn to coat, and then cover with a damp cloth. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about ½ hour.

Preheat oven to 245 degrees C or 470 F.

Punch down the dough, and (in the same bowl of course) knead briefly. Press into an 8 x 12” baking pan (no need to grease it). Keep in mind that the focaccia won’t rise much, so don’t press it much thinner than you want the final product to be. Let it rise for 5 minutes or so until it is about the height you want.

Mix the rosemary with the olive oil and brush it over the top of the bread. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for about 10 minutes (it should sound hollow when you tap the top), or a little longer if you want it to be a bit crustier. Cut into squares and serve.

Recipe notes: I used to be really intimidated by yeast breads, but once you get the hang of it, it’s as easy as cake! The only hard part is proofing the yeast – make sure your water isn’t too hot, or it will kill the yeast, and not too cool, or the yeast won’t activate. Also, if you’re having issues with the bread being too flat, just let it rise a tiny bit more before popping it in the oven.