Focaccia - with apples?

"I regard focaccia easier to make than to spell, and wonder if it isn't the bread to make first, even before you attempt a traditional white loaf. A batch rarely fails." Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater is rapidly becoming one of my favourite cooks and writers on food - which I'm sure you must have noticed. I read from his Kitchen Diaries on the appropriate day and today he had a recipe for an Apple and maple syrup focaccia - which sounded completely wrong and potentially completely right all at the same time. This is a picture of it. But why not? We have fruit breads after all - very popular for the trendy breakfasts of today.

To me focaccia was a savoury thing so to read of a sweet version was a little wrong sounding. So I looked into it and found that actually sweet versions of focaccia have been made for a very very long time. It is thought that the Etruscans were the first to make it and the name comes from the latin focus meaning a hearth for baking. And right there you have an indication of how important cooking is to the human race. Focus - in English means something central that should be paid attention to - something crucial, something to concentrate on. So to find that it's original meaning was the hearth used for baking on, is really, really interesting. But to go back to focaccia's origins - Liguria is mostly credited with its invention and this is where most of the traditional recipes come from.

And how does it differ from pizza? Well not a lot - the dough that is. Focaccia apparently has more yeast which makes it softer and more bread like. Focaccia also always has oil in it (and on it too). Pizza, of course, generally has more topping than focaccia, though, once again, the difference between a lightly topped pizza and a heavily topped focaccia is very slight. Anyway I love it and I agree with Nigel Slater - I rarely fail with focaccia, though I frequently do with home-made pizza dough. I use a recipe from the No-Knead bread lady as follows:

"In a large bowl mix together: 2 cups plain bakers’ our, 1 tsp bread improver, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tbsp dried yeast, 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese. Make a well in the centre and pour in 3/4 of 250ml very warm water mixed with 1 tsp olive oil. Mix thoroughly adding enough of the remaining liquid to make a moist stiff dough. Cover with gladwrap and allow to double in size in a warm place. (I put it in the sink, lled halfway up the bowl with hot water.) Turn out onto a oured board and consolidate into a ball. Roll the dough out into a circle about an inch smaller than the pizza tray. It will be about an inch thick. (I think I have been making it a bit thinner, but that’s due to the size of my tray.) Cover the pizza tray with foil and oil lightly. Place the dough on the tray.

Fill a small jar just over halfway with olive oil. To this add a crushed clove of garlic, half a teaspoon (or to taste) of crushed chilli and some chopped herbs - oregano, parsley, basil, marjoram are all good. Put the lid on the jar and shake well. Now spread evenly over the dough. Sprinkle with sesame seeds (optional) and top with sliced oven-dried tomatoes and sliced olives (optional). Put in a warm place (next to the stove is good) and allow to double in size. Push the tomatoes down into the dough. Place in a pre-heated oven (200ºC) for 15 mins. Cover with foil for the last 5-10 mins. if it looks like it will burn. The top should be golden brown."