How to Make Buckwheat Focaccia

Making bread at home is fairly easy. All you need is good quality yeast, flour, water and a bit of salt, at the very basic level. Once you're confident with that you can easily expand your repertoire with a few more ingredients and even with different kinds of flour. I find focaccia to be one of the easiest breads for beginner bakers like me. I've made innumerable focaccias and so far, thankfully, I've had no disasters! 

On a recent visit to the market the hubby and I picked up a packet of buckwheat flour. The plan was to use it to make pancakes in place of the regular APF pancakes I was making. 

buckwheat flour

I happened to make bread at home soon after and we immediately wondered how a focaccia with some buckwheat flour would taste. I did search on the Net but found recipes that were purely for those looking for vegan or gluten free breads. Since those required ingredients I didn't have I decided to just see what happened if I replaced a certain amount of APF with buckwheat flour in my usual focaccia recipe. As you can see in the picture above, it worked! 

Buckwheat Focaccia

2.5 cups all purpose flour

1 cup buckwheat flour

1.5 tbsp sugar

2.25 tsp instant yeast

1.5 tsp salt

1 cup tepid water

1/4 cup good quality olive oil

extra olive oil

toppings of your choice - garlic, sun dried tomatoes, olives, jalapenos, etc

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer mix all the dry ingredients and the olive oil. Stir for a couple of minutes to mix. Use the dough hook if you're using a stand mixer. Now pour the water into the mixture in two lots, mixing well in between additions. Don't add all the water unless you need to. Mix the dough combining all the ingredients till it comes together. 

If you're kneading by hand tip the dough out onto your cleaned and lightly oiled work surface and knead for a good 15 minutes till the dough comes together in a soft, slightly sticky ball. Add dry flour if the dough is too sticky but work at it steadily with a gentle hand. 

You can let your stand mixer do the kneading, it turns out just as well. Keep an eye on things and add a bit of dry flour if required. 

Once the dough is ready shape it into a neat ball and put it into a large greased (with olive oil) bowl to rise. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and leave it undisturbed in a warm spot till it has doubled in volume. 

Now turn out the risen dough onto your work surface and deflate it gently. Divide the dough into two and shape two loaves by gently patting the dough onto baking sheets. You can make the loaves thick or thin, as you like. Press holes into the surface of the loaf with your finger tips and poke in slivers of garlic, bits of rosemary, sun dried tomatoes or any other topping. Leave the loaves to rise for another 25-30 minutes. 

While the loaves are proofing set your oven to preheat at 200C. Once the loaves have risen properly slather generously with olive oil and bake for 15-18 minutes till done. When you tap on the loaf you should hear a firm hollow sound. The buckwheat flour will give you a darker loaf so don't go by how brown the loaf has become. 

Remove from the oven and brush with more olive oil. Let the breads cool and then slice up and serve. Enjoy the focaccia with bowls of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, soft cream cheese, and some cold cuts, or pair it with a hearty bowl of soup. You can also make superb sandwiches with this bread. 

Focaccia Caprese - My grand entrance into the We Knead to Bake baking group

Everyone knows I practically live on Facebook and I'm fairly active on a few food groups and have loads of food obsessed friends. I started noticing the same breads appearing on my timeline last year. Once it was a Hokkaido Milk Bread, the next time it was Bialys, then suddenly everyone was making doughnuts! I asked Saee about it because she seemed to be part of these mass baking events, and she told me about the We Knead to Bake group.

Some time last year I attended a bread class conducted by Saee at the APB Cook Studio run by Rushina and it was there that I finally realised that bread was not such a scary animal after all. In fact, bread was more flexible than cake which needs more precision. I tried out a bread or two now and then but on the whole I gave in to my lazy self and didn't stir too much.

Then suddenly we acquired a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. There was no way I could leave that just sitting on the kitchen counter doing nothing - I had to find things to make where I could use it. Bread and the We Knead to Bake group popped back in my mind and I dashed off a request to join. Aparna told me I had to wait for the new year to begin as that was when the round of bread baking would start.

2014 finally came and I was part of one more activity. A new bread every month sounded reasonably doable and since I lacked neither equipment nor easy access to ingredients, I was more than ready. Luckily for me the first bread for the year was a focaccia - an easy bread, perfect for beginners.

Aparna chose Focaccia Caprese as the bread for January.

I followed the recipe to the T and pressed the KA into service to do the kneading. I looked on in delight as the dough came together. However, as I watched in wonder, I did have some doubts. I remember stretching the dough in the bread class and though the KA was twisting the dough I didn't feel convinced that that was good enough.

I was right. I ended up with a disastrous leathery bread. My bread mad husband ate every last crumb but I knew that it hadn't worked. So I attempted it again on the next weekend. This time I just did the very initial mixing in the KA and once the ingredients had come together I took it out and hand kneaded the dough for a good 15 minutes. What a difference it made!

Here's the original recipe from The Kitchen Whisperer that inspired Aparna to choose this focaccia.

This is what I did.

For the Bread -

3.5 cups maida
1.5 tbsp sugar
2 tsp Instant Yeast
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup very good EVOO
1.5 cups warm water

Herbed Oil for brushing -

1/4 cup very good EVOO
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp minced fresh garlic
salt

For the topping -

1 large ripe tomato
1 pack Amul Mozarella/Pizza Cheese
Fresh Basil leaves
EVOO


In a clean bowl simply whisk together the herbed oil ingredients and keep aside.

I put all the bread ingredients barring the warm water into the mixing bowl of my stand mixer. First I started the machine on the Stir mode using the Dough Hook just to mix things gently and to prevent the flour from flying around in a cloud. After a minute I increased the speed to 2 and poured in a cup of warm water in two batches. I added a little more than another quarter cup of water till the dough came together into a ball and didn't stick to the sides of the bowl. I switched off the mixer and took out the dough to knead it by hand.

I kept warm water with me as I kneaded, pushing and stretching the dough and wetting my finger tips just a little to keep things going. After about 15 minutes of kneading I felt the dough was soft and just very slightly sticky, and quite smooth. I could stretch it about a foot without it snapping into two.

I oiled the mixer bowl with some EVOO and put my ball of dough to rise, covered with a pretty kitchen towel. The weather being slightly chilly I put the bowl in the microwave and left it there undisturbed. I DID NOT put on the microwave - just parked the dough inside.

After an hour or so the dough was nicely risen and as instructed, I divided the dough into two, flattened them out two cookie sheets and left them to rise again. In 20 minutes they were nicely puffed up. I poked dimples into the bread and slathered them liberally with the herbed oil mix.

The focaccia took about 17 minutes (at 200C ) to get a beautiful golden sheen. I forgot to take it out early enough to add the topping so the final bread was a little darker than I would have liked. Anyway, the bread was taken out of the oven and slices of mozarella and then tomatoes were piled on with a further lashing of herbed oil. The breads went back into the oven, this time at 220C for another 5 minutes.

I had perfect Focaccia Caprese and we had just that for dinner. The olive oil is the backbone of this bread - use the best you can find and I promise you, you will be quite happy to eat this bread on it's own.