New recipe: easy cheaty focaccia

When I published a picture of my easy no knead no rise irish soda bread recipe on Instagram recently, I mentioned that I thought it could be easily adapted to make a kind of cheaty focaccia, the Italian flatbread that’s often infused with rosemary and garlic. I gave it a go this week and oh my goodness. It’s SO easy and SO delicious - especially warm straight out of the oven. We had it with sweetcorn fritters, veggie burgers and salad and it was just the nicest accompaniment, but I can imagine it would be fab with antipasti, or just on the table with a lasagne and fresh salad. As with all soda breads, it doesn’t keep that long, but that honestly won’t be an issue.

Easy cheaty focaccia

450g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp sugar (if you’re making a sweet bread, make that 25g sugar, 100g sultanas and the zest of an orange)
1 egg
350ml buttermilk (or just sour some normal milk with juice of ½ lemon)
Olive oil
Fresh rosemary
Couple of cloves of garlic

Whack your oven on high (gas 8/220 C). Sieve the dry ingredients together (this is important - if you don’t, little bits of soda will show up in your finished scones as green lumps).

Crack the egg into a jug and give it a whisk, then add the buttermilk, topping it up to about 350 ml.

Stir the milk mixture into the flour with a fork bit by bit, stirring all the time. It’s a bit messy but be patient as it’ll come together into a nice soft dough. Don’t just pour all the milk mixture in as there’s a danger it will be too sloppy, then you’ll be faffing about adding more flour to get it right. Tip it out onto a floured surface and pat into a rough round shape.

Pour a good slug of olive oil into a bowl, crush the garlic and stir it into the oil. Season really well.

Generously oil the base of a heavy casserole dish (you can do this with plain olive oil), then pop the dough in. Now pour a generous amount of your garlicky seasoned oil over the top and squish it into the dough with your fingers. You want to leave nice, deep holes to hold all that lovely oil.

Pick off little sprigs of rosemary and pop them into the holes you made. Add a final sprinkling of crunchy Maldon sea salt.

Put the lid on and bake for 25 mins then another 5 or so without the lid until it’s nice and brown. Serve warm with whatever you’re eating 🙂