Family Fun Focaccia Art How To

My granddaughter, Annabelle, is a budding artist. She loves to draw, paint and do crafts. Luckily for me she also loves spending time in the kitchen. We have baked and decorated all kinds of treats together. While decorating cookies with icing and sprinkles is always a big hit I think the blank canvas of the focaccia dough provides a more artistic experience. Want to give family fun focaccia art a try?

Family Fun Focaccia Art How To

• create a blank canvas of focaccia dough (recipe follows)
• gather colorful toppings like fresh herbs, edible flowers and vegetables
• let the kids take a walk through a garden or park to gather inspiration
• enjoy these teachable moments employing all your senses

As you can see Annabelle created a lovely flower garden using simple ingredients right from the fridge and my backyard. Colorful slivered peppers, carrots and pickled red onions make lovely flower petals while fresh picked rosemary and flat leaf parsley add all the necessary aromatic greenery. What's in your fridge? Set out small bowls of slivered, sliced, picked and chopped of whatever you have and let imaginations go wild.

There are lots of focaccia recipes to choose from and any one of them will do for this fun family focaccia art activity. Use your favorite recipe or try the one I feature here using sourdough starter and some healthy whole grain organic flour.  This recipe features in Twinkl Picnic in the Park Blog

Family Fun Focaccia Art

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★★★★★

5 from 1 review

• Author: Lisa Keys
• Total Time: 6 hours 45 minutes
• Yield: 1 loaf 1x

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Description

Make some dough and have some fun with the kids. 

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

424 grams all-purpose flour

180 grams whole grain organic flour (or bread flour)

465 grams warm water

10 grams fine sea salt

115 grams active sourdough starter

12 grams extra-virgin olive oil plus more for coating the pan and drizzling on top

flaked salt

Fresh toppings of choice: herbs, slivered/chopped vegetables, edible flowers

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Instructions

1. In a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, combine flours, water, salt, sourdough starter and oil. Mix on low speed until well incorporated. Switch to dough hook. Increase speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes.
2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 2 hours. During this 2 hour time do 4 sets of stretch and folds starting at the 30 minute mark.
3. Scrape dough into a well-oiled 13x9-inch baking pan. Cover and let rise for 2 hours. As it proofs the dough will fill the pan, but with damp hands can be gently nudged into the corners. Now, at this point you can let it continue to proof another two hours until well-risen and bubbly or you can put it in the fridge for an overnight rise* (see notes).
4. Heat oven to 450F. 
5. With damp fingers, poke the dough all over the top creating dimples.
6. Drizzle olive oil all over the top.
7. Decorate the top of the dough as desired with assorted toppings and flaked salt
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Cool in pan on rack.

Notes

Remove pan of dough from the fridge and bring it to room temperature. Let it finish proofing until well risen and bubbly. This can take a few hours depending on the room temperature.

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• proofing: 6 hours
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Category: breads
• Method: oven
• Cuisine: Italian

Keywords: focaccia, bread, kid's activity, art, sourdough