Gluten Free Focaccia

This is my delicious family favourite recipe for tear and share focaccia. Before I was gluten free (when I was about eight), tear and share breads were one of the first foods I would eat that weren’t pasta, grated cheese, ketchup or butter. It had to be the Waitrose garlic tear and share though!! I was too fussy to try any other brands for at least a few years. Anyway, it just blew my mind how many flavours could be in one bite without adding any gross textures.

I have been trying to develop a gluten free recipe for years now. Since visiting  Italy this summer and finding the best focaccia ever (pictured below), I am closer than ever before to my perfect recipe. I noticed the secret ingredient of psyllium powder in the Italian focaccia, one of the only translatable ingredients. From testing out Paul Hollywood’s gluten free pitta bread recipe using this secret ingredient, I have been experimenting to develop my focaccia bread recipe.

Ingredients

• 15 grams of Psyllium powder
• 300 grams of strong gluten free bread flour
• 2 teaspoons of dried rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of garlic granules
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 10 grams of dried yeast
• 1 medium to large egg
• 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• about 400 to 500ml of water
• a few sprigs of fresh Rosmary to decorate (optional)

Method

 In a small bowl stir 200ml of water into the psyllium powder. Stir the mixture until it starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. In a large bowl, place the dry ingredients ensuring you place the yeast on the opposite side of the bowl to the salt and sugar. Make a well in the center of the bowl with a spoon and pour into it the wet ingredients apart from the water. Add the psyllium mixture. Using an electric mixer with a dough hook or a kMix with the K-beater as I do, mix the ingredients  slowly adding the water until a wet dough is formed. The dough should be thick enough that tracks are left from mixing, but wet enough that the mixture sticks to the bowl. It should take about 5 minutes to get this consistency. If the mixture is lumpy, continue to mix for a few minutes longer and add another 50 ml of water.

Cover the bowl and place it in a warm room for 1 hour. After this, remove it and place it in an oiled non-stick tray that is about 11″ by 8″ by 2″. Push in a few sprigs of fresh rosemary then cover and prove again for 30 minutes. Finally, remove the cover and drizzle the bread with a little more olive oil then place it in an oven 180C for about 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and 85C if you have a thermometer to hand. If not press the bread lightly on the top and if it springs back, leaving no mark then it is cooked.

Hattie x