Focaccia is a delicious Italian bread

Taste preferences of different peoples of the world invariably cause great interest. Traveling by countries and continents is almost always accompanied by familiarity with traditional food.

Features of Italian cuisine

Italian cuisine was originally oriented primarily to the tastes of local peasants and fishermen. It contains a large number of various gifts of the sea and land, as well as products of lactic acid fermentation. Italian cheeses are a separate topic for a great conversation.

Bread of the Apennine peninsula

Italians eat a lot of bread. It they know how to bake, like no other in the world. Wheat of hard varieties, growing on the mountain slopes of the Apennine peninsula, has long been deservedly respected by bakers. They say that each city has its own bread, with its own recipe and name. It's not easy for a traveler to understand this. For example, what is focaccia and how it differs from pizza, crozine or bruschetta, an alien not living in the Apennines, is difficult to understand. And although Italian cuisine is now in great fashion, outside the country, even in a restaurant oriented to Italian cooking, you can get a crozine instead of ordered bruschetta or pizza instead of focaccia, and in response to legal objections - to see the uncomprehending look of the waiter.

What is focaccia?

Focaccia is bread, flat bread made from yeast or unleavened dough. It can be used for cooking bruschetta and crozine, or you can eat solo or snack with cheese, meat, vegetables, drinking with young grape wine or milk. For bruschetta focaccia is cut into portions, heated on charcoal, rubbed with garlic, poured with olive oil, top put sun-dried tomatoes, baked eggplant, ham-prosciutto, carpaccio, cheese, etc. For the crozine, it is also cut, but not heated, but eaten in Cold, smeared with pesto, tomato sauce or otherwise.

Focaccia - thin, centimeters 2-3, large cake. It can be round or square. Usually a large baking tray is made for the entire area. Bread focaccia made from Italian wheat flour is incredibly airy, lush and elastic. It can be squeezed to connect the upper and lower crusts, and letting go, see how it straightens and acquires the original thickness and appearance.

What do you need to get such a springy and thin focaccia? The recipe is extremely simple. It's all about flour. Italian bread, in particular focaccia, is a batch of durum wheat flour, called durum.

Conventional focaccia from yeast dough

On the average baking tray measuring 28 x 35 cm, the following ingredients are required:

- wheat flour - 300 g;

- water - 180 ml in dough and 110 ml on a baking tray;

- dry baker's yeast - one teaspoon;

- large salt - 1 teaspoon;

- refined vegetable oil for lubricating bread.

Double sift the flour. In a large nonmetallic bowl, pour the flour and yeast, stir. Pour the water in small portions, stirring all the time until it reaches a uniform state. When all the flour is moistened and the ball can be formed from the dough (it should be wet and sticky), cover it with a damp towel and put it in a warm place - to the battery or to the oven, heated to 40-45 degrees for 2 hours. Time is specified conditionally. The dough may go up badly or begin to settle prematurely due to a sharp temperature drop caused by a draft from the open window or door. The activity of yeast is also of great importance. If the conditions are met for two hours, the dough should increase by a factor of two. As soon as you notice that it has begun to settle, you can proceed to the next stage.

Cover the baking sheet with baking paper and place the dough on it. Fingers spread throughout the area, cover with a wet towel and leave to rise for another hour. After this, make in the dips test and carefully pour on it all the water. Do it so that the water gets into all the holes and spreads across the bottom. Sprinkle the top with salt. In the oven, put a container of water to evaporate. Bake at the maximum temperature for about 10 minutes. When the top is browned, grease the focaccia with refined oil and return it to the oven. Repeat this action 2-3 times until the bread gets the right kind. The correct form of focaccia is a rosy top crust and a light, slightly damp lower part.

Easter bread

Region Veneto gave Italy, and at the same time and we with you sweet focaccia. It is also called Easter.

For preparation it is necessary:

- dry yeast - 2.25 teaspoons;

- water - 1 glass;

- honey - 3 tablespoons;

- Wheat flour - 2 cups;

- ground cinnamon - 2 teaspoons;

- salt - half a teaspoon;

- vegetable oil refined - 3 tablespoons;

- half a glass of sugar;

2-3 tablespoons of butter.

Mix in a glass of water, yeast and honey and put for 10 minutes in a warm place for fermentation. Sift in a bowl of flour, add salt, sugar and cinnamon, pour in the foaming yeast mixture and knead the dough. Next, cover it with a damp towel and place in a warm place for one and a half to two hours.

When the dough is suitable, that is, it will increase in volume by a factor of two and begin to settle, place it on a baking sheet with baking paper stacked on the bottom. Spread the dough over the entire surface, let it come back up again, then form grooves in it and bake in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes.

Take the bread out of the oven and let it cool for five minutes. During this time, prepare a flip of melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. Using a silicone brush, grease them with focaccia. Ten minutes later, sprinkle with cinnamon.

What else is focaccia?

Focaccia is bread, which does not get fat, despite the fact that it is often made with fillers. In Genoa, it is cooked with onions, and it blocks the feeling of hunger. Focaccia di Recco is two-layered. Between the two thin plates of the dough, cheese is placed, sometimes with slices of prosciutto, and pepper with garlic on top. In some cases, milk is added to the dough for focaccia: this is different from pizza, in which it is not necessary to add milk products. And sometimes it is made without yeast, quite thin, because authentic focaccia is the easiest bread made from flour and water.