I’ve never in my life made bread. What took me so long? Fear. Why now? Why not? Okay, I confess. I adapted a recipe that claims it’s the easiest. I’m a sucker for titles like that…so here are the ingredients….
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 10gm of active dry yeast
- 80ml of warm water
- 450gm of flour
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon of ordinary salt
- 4 tablespoons of Rosemary powder (you can of course use fresh rosemary!)
- 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt
# – In a bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water.
# – Let stand for 10 minutes until creamy. Brace yourself for the stench, lol.
# – Prepare flour and salt in a larger mixing bowl.
# – Combine the yeast mixture with flour; stir well to combine.
# – Add in the Rosemary powder too, for a beautiful fragrance. Stir in additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all of the flour is absorbed.
# – Till it forms a dough that looks something like this. Gently knead it for another minute.
# – Now lightly oil a different bowl or pot and leave the dough inside.
# – Cover the bowl with a damp but clean towel. Leave it for 30 minutes.
# – After 30 minutes, the dough would have doubled in size.
# – Grease a baking tray with olive oil.
# – On a floured surface, deflate the dough and gently knead it for one minute. Then, pat or roll the dough into a sheet and place it onto the greased baking tray.
# – Sprinkle coarse sea salt all over the surface of the dough.
# – A few dashes of black pepper too.
# – And lastly, a sprinkling of rosemary powder all over…
# – With a fork, poke the dough all over.
# – Then, stick it in a pre-heated oven of 245 degrees Celcius for 10-20minutes depending on the desired crispiness. The longer, the crispier. I baked mine for 15 minutes.
# – Easiest focaccia, DONE!
# – Great with olive oil + balsamic vinegar, creamy soup, gravy and my favourite…chopped crabstick mixed with mayo and tabasco sauce. Yums!
This bread freezes really well too. Just wrap it in foil and stick it in freezer. When you want to eat it, take the whole thing out (bread and foil), place it on a shallow baking tray filled with some water (make sure foil has no holes as you don’t want water to seep into the bread), open the foil so top of bread is exposed, and bake at preheated oven at 150 degrees celcius for 10 minutes.
Nothing beats the smell of homemade breads!