Summer Projects: Focaccia Bread @ Home!

Done! 

YEAST. Yowser... the bane and the boon of so many cooks, or rather uninitiated cooks. You have to understand, I'm South Indian Tamil. In our lives, there are three types of bread. 

• The Puri
• The Chapathi
•  Milk Bread / Wheat Bread

And that's that. None of these breads use yeast, and in all honesty they're just basic flat bread. I've had a lot of disasters with yeast: such as trying to make the Malaysian Rotiboy Mexican Coffee Bun: Flat dead yeast, gave me a flat stone ball made of dough. I enjoyed moderate success with the Khaboos and returned to the yeast adventures in an attempt to use up stock of 'erbs! 

I struck gold with this recipe for easy as ever focaccia bread! 

Alterations/ Tips used to the recipe was that:

Dough before the capscium
topping and second rising

• I used a whole heap of dried herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano and basil) to make it very 'erby
• While the timings are indicative of the amount of time it will take for the bread to rise, be mindful of the temperature at home. If warmer outside, leave the dough in the shade on the terrace for half the time :) 
• The dough needs to be ball like almost- one key difference between making this bread now and the others before: a measuring set from Wonderchef! I dare say, try and get one of those plastic flask looking things that give you measurements in cups and in ml.. that's all you really need
• Kneading: Just watch this longish video. Incorporate the recipes portions with the actions in the video

I also managed to make 2 more variations of focaccia on the same day. Honestly, the basic stuff is the flour and the timings, after which you can just wing it with the flavors that you like: I made a garlic bread themed one (plenty o garlic and oregano, not just in the topping but also in the bread mix. Added butter instead of olive oil) and a mushroom one, with mushroom trees on the top.  

Tastes great with simple Amul Creamy Cheese spread, but fancier dips, in the form of sour cream and chives etc are all over the net. Go crazy. 

Time to eat!

All the luck! Do let me know if all this worked some yeasty magic, should you try to make it some time.