Here’s another of our Tea Party bakes! A tasty tomato and feta focaccia that is perfect for cutting into thin strips and sharing out. This meant it worked perfectly on the tea party table as a tasty savoury treat to be eaten on its own or with dips, chutneys or cured meat.
Focaccia is a tasty Italian bread that is baked spread out over a baking sheet with dimples all over the surface. These are for creating different textures, the crust getting nice and crispy and the dimples staying chewy and doughier. It has got quite a wet dough making a looser, more random crumb structure, perfect for soaking up some extra virgin olive oil.
We chose to top our focaccia with some fresh cherry tomatoes and crumbled feta cheese to make a bread that was interesting and tasty all on its own. But we also made a sea salt and rosemary one which works better as an accompaniment but is still just as delicious.
- 500g strong white bread flour
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp salt
- 14g dried active yeast
- 400ml water
- 6 cherry tomatoes (chopped in half)
- 100g feta
- Place the flour, salt and yeast in a bowl and mix together.
- Add the oil and 300ml of the water and mix with your hands or a spoon so the dough starts to come together.
- Add in the rest of the water and knead in the bowl for 5 mins.
- To knead in the bowl tuck the sides into the centre, turn the bowl 80 degrees and repeat for 5 minutes.
- Then knead on an oiled work surface for a further 5 mins.
- Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size.
- Tip the dough out onto a lined baking sheet and spread out, pushing it into the corners.
- Leave to rise for another hour.
- With your fingers, press dimples into the surface of the dough, going almost to the bottom.
- Push your halves of tomato into the dough, spread out evenly and crumble feta over the top.
- Drizzle with olive oil and bake for 20 mins at 220°c
- For a simpler but still as tasty, try sea salt and rosemary focaccia, make the same as this recipe but instead of topping with tomato and feta, before baking, sprinkle over coarse sea salt and chopped fresh rosemary.
