Olive and Jalapeno Focaccia

Wouldn't it be nice if one could reduce ones need to go grocery shopping every weekend and prepare more stuff in the kitchen. Cost issues aside, the surety of using quality and healthy ingredients would make it such a wonderful proposition. But alas, who has the time!! 

Anyway, it's been a while since we have wanted to try baking our own bread. Before we bake a complete loaf, however, we thought of starting with a focaccia - a flat Italian bread typically topped with herbs and other things. We loved the experiment. The bread came out crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Perfect for eating just like that, or dipping with marinara sauce, or slicing in the middle and preparing a sandwich. We didn't need to shop bread for the week - some help!!

Ingredients

1 cup warm water (to activate dry yeast)

1 tsp dry active yeast

1 cup all purpose flour

1 1/4 cup wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tbsp olives sliced

1 tbsp jalapenos sliced

1/2 tsp garlic salt

Method

1.  In a bowl, mix sugar in warm water. Water should neither be cold nor not. Add yeast to the mix and let it rise for 5 mins.

2. Prepare a dough by mixing flours, olive oil, salt and yeast.

3. Knead it well for atleast 7 - 10 mins till soft. You may use more oil to make it workable.

4. Transfer the dough to a bowl and cover it with a moist warm cloth. Let it rest for 3 hours atleast. Dough will rise well.

5. Knock the dough well once it rises well. 

6. Grease the baking tray and spread the dough on it in the desired shape and thickness around 1.5 cms. You may use your finger tips to give it shape.

7. Leave the dough on the baking tray for 30 - 40 mins.

8. Make a mixture of good quality extra virgin olive oil and garlic salt. Spread that uniformly on the top of the bread. Now make equally spaced indents on the bread and place olives and jalapenos on the indents.

9. Pre - heat the oven for 5 mins at 220 degrees. Now bake for 20 - 25 mins at 220 degrees.

Focaccia bread is ready to enjoy with marinara sauce or to make a sandwich out of it :)