Simple Country Living.: Focaccia

Showing posts with label Focaccia. Show all posts

3 March 2014

Finally Feeling Better

Well, it's been a while since my last post. I have had the dreaded flu and have really not felt well enough to post anything. I have had an ear infection which made me dizzy and deaf and extremely prone to falling over when getting up too quickly or bending down, or pretty much just walking around, I have had a sinus infection which was just too gruesome to mention and I have been battling high temperatures, aching muscles and a horrible cough but I am happy to say, 6 weeks later I am finally feeling much better ...... and let me tell you I am so happy to be feeling almost human again. I missed 3 weeks at the market and watched so much daytime TV that I found myself actually starting to like some of it .......eeeek! But happily, I'm now back. I'm back at the market, I'm back sewing and baking focaccia and have even added gluten free focaccia to my repertoire and I am finally back blogging again.

Gluten Free Focaccia with Feta and Sundried Tomatoes

While I was ill I also had time to think a few things through. Until now, the market, although fabulous fun and great place to be, is not really financially viable enough to provide me with enough money to live on and although at the moment that's fine, in a few years time this is not going to be the case. So, I am in the process of coming up with a 4 year plan to make sure that I can grow my business enough to provide me with a modest living when the time comes. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting to become a millionaire, nor am I even expecting to be particularly well off but I am hoping to at least be able to support myself. I don't live a particularly lavish lifestyle and I try to make the most of what I have by making do, upcycling things like furniture and fabrics and making my own soft furnishings so, add to that growing my own veg, keeping chickens for eggs and being thrifty in the kitchen and I am hopeful that I will see my 4 year plan pay off.

It was with this plan in mind that this week, I made a massive decision. My handmade focaccia is really taking off at the market and last week, I was asked if I could make some gluten free focaccia as well. After much testing of different recipes and sourcing of all the ingredients, my 3rd batch turned out extremely well. The only problem is, whereas normal focaccia dough is like wrestling with an uncooperative jelly fish, gluten free focaccia dough doesn't need kneading at all, just whisking. In my case, this meant whisking with a hand-held electric whisk. No problem you might think, easier than kneading a jellyfish, you might think but honestly ...... when is life ever that simple! Gluten free focaccia dough is like very gloopy, thick, sticky cake batter. It sticks to the beaters and climbs it's way up them, trying to climb inside the mixer and jam up the motor and when you lift the beaters out of the dough to scrape them off, it sprays it all over the kitchen walls! Not good.

So ....

To my mammoth decision .....

I bought a food mixer!

A very expensive food mixer!!

A £300 food mixer!!!!!!!

I felt faint after I had ordered it and had to sit down and have a cup of tea.

I then had to stop myself ringing and cancelling the order after I got cold feet and freaked out about how much it cost.

And it's being delivered TODAY

And, despite the fact that I was freaked out about how much it cost I think it will be a great investment and I really can't wait to use it.

This is the one.

So I am now sitting on the sofa waiting for the knock on the door like a kid waiting for Santa Clause.

And if anyone has any advice on how to make my fledgling business more profitable, with marketing, promotion, how to grow the business, things like that, I would be immensely grateful.

10 November 2013

Branching Out

As most of you know .... not least because I probably bore you all to death every time I mention it ...... I have a stall at a local produce market three days a week. The things that I usually sell there are all made using my temperamental sewing machine and whatever gorgeous fabric takes my fancy at the time and these things seem to sell quite well but it can sometimes be a bit hit and miss and some weeks are better than others. I have noticed, however, that food items seem to sell particularly well and having recently completed a food hygiene course, I was keen to have a go at producing something delicious and foodie to sell myself. I was thinking of making bread. I bake bread for myself almost every day and although it's time consuming, I was convinced I could make it work so, a couple of weeks ago, I set about having a practice to see how many loaves of bread I could bake in the evening from about 5pm, which is about the time I get back from the market and would be the amount of time I would have available to actually bake the bread on market days. Turns out, there just isn't enough time to bake anywhere near enough bread to supply the market, partly because of timing issues and partly because my oven isn't really big enough to fit more than 2 baking trays in at once so, refusing to be defeated, I was pondering this dilemma while reading my daughters blog, (which is here if you would like to have a look) and I remembered that she had made some focaccia. This was my Eureka moment! I promptly searched the internet for a suitable focaccia recipe and after trying out 3 different recipes, I finally found one that worked for me. Be warned, however, not all focaccia recipes are the same, some of them have a dough that is quite wet and very sticky and you just have to persevere and try not give in to the temptation to add extra flour. In fact, if you have a free standing mixer, I would suggest you make it in that instead of wrestling with a bowl full of uncooperative dough! I don't have one and frankly can't afford one as the one I really, really, REALLY like is £399 and when you consider the car I'm driving at the moment only cost me £350 it kind of puts it into perspective :-)

I made 3 varieties, sundried tomato and feta, rosemary and sea salt and caramelised onion and I took them to the market this week to see how they would sell. I was amazed. Every one of them sold and people even came back and ordered more. I'm now on a mission to find even more delicious varieties to make and I have even found some sweet focaccia recipes which I'm going to try out this week.

Anyway, here is one of the the recipes I tried, in case you want to give it a try. This recipe seems to be less sticky than the rest of them and the one I am now using.

Here is the link to the recipe page is here if you want to have a look at the website.

Ingredients

For the dough

500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 x 7g/¼oz sachet of fast-action dried yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp fine sea salt
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
300ml/10fl oz/½ pint warm water

For the topping

3 tbsp olive oil
flaked sea salt, to taste
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
10 tiny sprigs of rosemary

Preparation method

To make the dough, put the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Mix the olive oil with the warm water and pour it on to the flour mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon and then bring the mixture together with your hands to form a rough ball.
Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes to make a smooth, pliable and fairly soft dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover loosely with oiled cling film and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm place until it has doubled in size.

Watch technique1:58 mins
Lightly oil a large baking tray measuring about 36cm x 25cm/14in x 10in.
Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and knock it back with your knuckles. Press the dough into a rough rectangle, about the size of the baking tray, then carefully place it on the baking tray and ease it out towards the edges. Don’t worry too much about how it looks – it’s meant to be rustic.

Watch technique0:43 mins
Cover loosely with oiled cling film and leave in a warm place for a further 30 minutes to prove.
Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
After 30 minutes, the focaccia should look puffed up and spongy. Use your index finger to poke dimples all over the dough right through to the bottom of the tray.
To make the topping, drizzle the focaccia with the three tablespoons of olive oil, allowing it to seep into the dimply holes. Sprinkle with the sea salt, black pepper and chopped rosemary. Finish by poking the twiggy sprigs of rosemary randomly into the dough.
Bake in the centre of the oven for about 15–20 minutes or until risen and deep golden brown. Serve warm.

27 October 2013

The Calm Before The Storm??!!

With a storm force weather warning in place for Cornwall and the rest of the UK, I have spent the last couple of hours sorting out the garden and the field in order to try and keep the animals safe in case this storm turns out to be anything like the one in 1987. I have moved anything that could get blown around or blown away, I have brought in the feed buckets after the llamas had finished their breakfast, I have tied the tarpaulin firmly around the hay, I have fetched in a bag of coal and I have found out a whole pile of candles in case the power goes out. The chickens should be ok as their chicken house was hand made by a market friend of mine and weighs roughly the same as a double decker bus and is much less manoeuvrable and their large run should be pretty wind proof as the wind should just rush through the mesh so hopefully the animals are sorted. This afternoon I'm going to bake some bread so if the power goes out we can at least have sandwiches to eat with some quiche that I made yesterday.

Taken from the Met Office website this morning.

During the storm of 1987, I was living in Gosport in Hampshire. It was awful. The devastation the next morning was unbelievable. As I walked into Gosport town the following day, there were boats and yachts literally just dumped in the middle of the road by the strong winds and high tides! Roads were blocked because trees had blown down all over the place and hundreds of homes were damaged. I'm just hoping that they have got it wrong this time but judging by the met office website I think we could be in for a rough couple of days. I have to say, at the moment though, the weather is eerily calm. There is hardly any wind at all and it's sunny!

Taken from my front door at 8.41 this morning (Sunday 27th Oct)!

On a much nicer note, I just thought I would give a little mention to my daughter Lucy who has recently started her own blog called Retro Kitchen Corner. She has some fabulous recipes on there and this week, I decided to try and make some focaccia bread from a recipe she gave me a link to. It was absolutely fabulous, although, as I discovered, focaccia dough is nothing like normal bread dough. Normal bread dough is smooth and silky, focaccia dough is wet and gloopy and a bit like wrestling with an uncooperative jellyfish! That aside, I took some along to the market for the other stall holders to try this week and they absolutely loved it. Lucy's blog is HERE so if you want to nip on over and have a look at her delicious recipes, the hazelnut and chocolate torte tastes amazing and yesterday she posted a delicious looking recipe for cinnamon buns that I'm going to have a go at making this week.

Now I'm going to sit and watch the news and hope that the weather forecasters have once again got it wrong and if not, take care everyone and fingers crossed that everyone out there stays safe.

XxX

Recipes