Dissolve the yeast in water and mix with the olive oil. Mix the flour with the salt and sugar. Pour the mixture over the flour. Knead all the ingredients together with your hands until the dough doesn’t stick to them any more. Surprising as it may seem, your hands should be completely clean of any mixture when the dough is ready: this will take about 20 minutes. You should end up with a smooth, white dough.
Leave the dough to rest for about 30 minutes, covered with a damp tea towel. Grease a tin with olive oil and tip in the dough to cover the base.
Cut the tomatoes and apricots into slices and arrange on top of the dough. Sprinkle with oregano and finish off with the cheese.
Leave to ferment for 60 minutes in a warm place, covering the focaccia with a damp tea towel to ensure it ferments properly.
Preheat the oven to 250º C and sprinkle some water on the focaccia before baking to produce steam. Bake at 200º C for about 20 minutes.
Recipes
Melted cheese, tomato and dried apricot focaccia
Ingredients
- For the focaccia:
- 500 g (17.5 oz) flour
- 10 g (0.3 oz) salt
- 20 g (1 oz) sugar
- 100 ml (3 US fl oz) olive oil
- 200 ml (7 oz) water
- 20 g (1 oz) fresh yeast
- For the filling:
- 200 g (7 oz) cheese that melts easily, e.g. Brie or Emmental
- 500 g (17.5 oz) tomatoes
- 50 g (2 oz) dried apricots
- Oregano
Step by step
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Step 1
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‘- You can use lots of different ingredients in the focaccia. Here we suggested cheese, tomato and dried apricot to combine sweet, sharp and sticky flavours and textures that work well together. However, you can just as easily open your fridge or kitchen cupboard and add last night’s leftovers or whatever else your imagination suggests, such as olives, anchovies, aromatic herbs, vegetables or ham.
– Accompanied by a good salad, focaccia makes a great dinner.
– Since focaccia is a kind of bread, if you make it with just aromatic herbs and a good olive oil, it can easily accompany any dish.