Mozzarella Pesto Focaccia

The great thing about blogging is meeting new people. People from all around the globe that you would never have met had you not started ranting online about your life.

Just last night, Scott and I got to meet up with a couple we’d talked to on Twitter for a couple of years at one of the Christmas markets here in Berlin. Needless to say, we all indulged in several mugs of gluhwein and I’m feeling a little worse for wear this morning. But a great night was had by all and we can now say that we have two new friends that we can meet up with again should our paths cross.

The power of the internet when it comes to things like this never ceases to amaze me. I can only imagine how many other awesome people are out there that I have yet to meet.

But if we can’t meet in real life right now, let me at least introduce you to this delightful focaccia. In literally breaking bread, I hope we can become great friends.

I’d been wanting to make a focaccia bread for a while. Over a year, to be exact. Ever since we watched a cooking show on the TLC channel in Serbia and saw someone making a delightful sea salt and rosemary version. Our mouths were watering and although we sought out focaccia bread at every opportunity after that, we could never seem to find one, or certainly not a wonderfully warm and fluffy one.

Now that we’re friends (did I jump the gun? I have a tendency to do that. But look! I made you focaccia!) let me be honest with you: bread scares me. I don’t make it often, mainly because for the last couple of years I just haven’t had the equipment / kitchen space / time / a good oven (delete as appropriate). As soon as I made this mozzarella pesto focaccia, I wondered what the hell I’d been waiting for.

We ate this with our soup one cold winter lunchtime in Amsterdam. And now I’m dreaming about when I can make it again.

You don’t need to add the fresh rosemary to this if you don’t want to; I just love the flavour of it in my focaccia. Either way, it’s so soft, fluffy and deliciously comforting that you will want to eat the whole thing in one go. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mozzarella Pesto Focaccia

Recipe by Julia

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Ingredients

• 4 cups (500g) strong white bread flour, plus some for dusting

• 1 ½ tsp salt

• 2 1/2 tsp (7g sachet) fast-action yeast

• 2 tbsp olive oil, plus some for drizzling

• 125g ball mozzarella, drained

• 1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

• 5 tbsp pesto

• Good pinch sea salt

• Handful of sprigs of fresh rosemary

Directions

• Stir the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl.
• In a separate bowl, mix the yeast with 325ml tepid water. Add the yeast water and the olive oil to the flour and mix it in a stand mixer on low, until it forms a ball of dough.
• Lightly dust your work surface with flour and work the dough on it for around ten minutes. By this I mean knead it, pull it and stretch it as much as you can. You are trying to get as much air into the dough as possible, in order to achieve that light and fluffy bread. Shape the dough into a neat ball.
  
• Cover the base and sides of a large bowl with a little oil and place your ball of dough in it, then cover the top of the dough with a little more oil (rub it over with your hands). Cover the bowl with some cling film or a tea towel and leave to stand in a warm room for around an hour.
• The dough should be much bigger in size after the hour, at which point you should remove it from the bowl and stretch it out into a large rectangle onto a 20x30cm baking tray. Cover the dough loosely with a tea towel and leave it again for around 30 minutes, in order to allow it to prove for a second time (it will rise a little again).
• Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C.
• Using your fingers, press several holes into the dough randomly (not down to the bottom, just indentations). Push the rosemary into these holes and scatter the dough with a sprinkle of sea salt. Bake the dough for 15 minutes.
• Remove the bread from the oven and tear large chunks of mozzarella over top, as well as sprinkling with the grated parmesan. Put it back into the oven to bake again for another 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and is golden.
• Remove the bread from the oven and drizzle the pesto over it while it’s still warm. Cut into slices and serve.

Notes

• Adapted from Good Food