Rosemary Focaccia Bread

My first try at making bread and a success!

This definitely won’t be the last time I’ll make bread….

Sunday brunch conversation

Me: B (short for Babe (aka the Husband)…yes, I am lazy that I can’t say the entire word), soooo what can we do with the leftover rosemary?

(without a pause… so this must have been on his mind and he was waiting for the right time…)

B: Why don’t you make some rosemary focaccia?

Me: What?!? You think making bread is just like that (snap of the fingers)?!

B: Yea, just do it… it’ll be easy…

Now, I’m thinking, right easy? But I guess it’s early enough on Sunday, so maybe we should just try it out. I googled and found a recipe on Food Network (link to recipe) with several reviews and high ratings. I followed it exactly, except for when I added the rosemary at the end.

So for the next few hours, our focaccia-to-be-dough-ball, was my “Dough Baby”. I was hoping that tending to Dough Baby, meant that it would pay off…and it did!

I have to say that making focaccia is A LOT easier than I anticipated. To start off, you don’t need bread flour. So it meant that I didn’t need to go out of my way to buy bread flour for this one bread making occasion. So as long as you have yeast, sugar and a few cups of olive oil, you’re set. Plus some sea salt and herbs and you’re set to start!

The recipe from Anne Burrell is great and the focaccia comes out fluffy and crispy. A few of my own notes below from her recipe:

For the warm water for the yeast, the temperature should be approximately from 105F degrees to 110F degrees (up to 115F degrees is risky).
I used a flaky pink Himalayan salt to finish on top before baking. The flaky salt prevents you from getting a bite that’s too salty.
About 2 tablespoons of rosemary on top before baking.
Don’t worry if olive oil is flooding your dough, it’ll come out even better and crispier.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how nice the focaccia turned out. We couldn’t stop eating more of the crispy outside layer and fluffy inside.

The bread is easy to store and you can either microwave it or put it in the oven at 350F degrees for a few minutes to re-heat. The oven will give it a crunchy texture (since it’s technically drying out the bread), but dip it in a homemade cheese gravy sauce and it’s heaven.

Or make some fun focaccia creations out of it!

Bacon, Egg and Cheddar Cheese

Shredded cheddar cheese plus cheddar cheese gravy sauce