Sunday, May 13, 2007

Dried fruit focaccia

I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart's talk show. It looked really good, but I didn't like the thought of using a whole cup of oil to make focaccia - too many calories. So I decided to alter my standby focaccia recipe (Peter Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne) to get a similar effect without all the oil. I used the same amount of dried fruit as Martha, and used the fruit soaking liquid instead of water in the dough. I also cut the amount of salt in half and added 2 tablespoons of sugar to the pain a l'ancienne dough. I let the dough retard overnight in the fridge, and proceeded with Peter Reinhart's instructions for shaping focaccia. I ended up with a lot of dough, enough to fill a 12 x 17 pan and an 8 x 8 pan. Before baking, I generously sprinkled the dough with sanding sugar.

This bread was delicious - the dried fruit adds a lot of flavor and the sanding sugar adds sweetness and crunch. I will definitely be making this again soon.

3 comments:

Suzanne Lieurance said...

Sounds and looks yummy!

I'll have to try it.

Suzanne Lieurance
Three Angels Gourmet Co.
http://www.threeangelsgourmet.com

Freya said...

This looks really delicious! I love the crunchy sugar topping!

Anonymous said...

This was wonderful!!! Loved it! Mom