Peasant Bread or Herb Focaccia

I was excited to find this recipe and see that I had all of the ingredients in the house.  I love the blog Yummy, Healthy, and Easy and I thought that this would be a great yummy, healthy and easy bread to make.  I had to make a yummy bread to take with me to a girls lunch so I thought that this recipe sounded perfect.  It could be used to make sandwiches. eat on it's own or dip in olive oil.  Make sure you check out her blog and recipe here.

 I am normally a bread machine girl because you put everything in and forget about it until it is done but this seemed easy enough and I thought that I would have enough time to do it.  The dough came together easily but it looked a little floury but I wasn't worried because I was sure that it would turn out well no matter what.  Things change when the dough sits for a little bit and this dough did as well!

I put a wet cloth over the bowl and let it sit.  It doubled in size and got big and spongey.  I split it into two loaves and put it on my cookie sheet.  It was really sticky and a little hard to handle which was funny because just a little bit ago it was too dry.  Good thing that I didn't add any additional liquid!!

I covered it with the same cloth and let it sit until with doubled in size again because it lost a lot of good air bubbles with the handling.

Then, I took the cloth off and saw that it was huge.  I don't know if I used a pan that was too small or let it sit a little too long but I cleaned up the stuff that went over the edge of the pan so that it was nice and neat again.  I separated the loaves just a little so that I would have two nicely cooked loaves.

I topped with two different seasonings.  One was my favorite which was garlic salt....in my family you can't go wrong with a little garlic salt on top with a little of some other spices.  The other was for my girls lunch so I used a mix of spices since I have one friend who is on a low salt diet.  I baked them and they came out looking great and smelling even better.

Check out this really cool looking top.  I was so excited to try it and so was my husband.  He was worried that I was taking everything with me and he wouldn't get any.  I told him that I needed him to taste test (his favorite job) and we ate most of the one loaf before I even left the house.

I used a dry cloth and packed up my hot loaf of spice topped bread in a basket.  Doesn't it look pretty!

Check out the fluffy inside with the big pockets of air in the bread.  It was so light and fluffy that I am amazed that it didn't get bigger then the loaf actually became after it rose.

We enjoyed some bread plain but it was great dipped in olive oil with spices. I can't wait to make this again and enjoy the bread hot out of the oven.  I have a feeling that we are going to do it a lot more in the winter months but it is easy to do in the summer as long as you are going to heat the oven to make something else too :)  I hope that you try it out and see how tasty this homemade bread is.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!!

Peasant Bread or Herb Focaccia

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp or 1 package dry yeast
• 2 cups warm water (110 degrees)
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 cups flour
• 1 egg white OR melted butter for topping
• garlic salt or other seasonings (basil, oregano, ect)

Instructions

1. Mix yeast and warm water and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. After 10 minutes, pour the yeast and water mixture in a mixing bowl with the sugar, salt and flour. Do not mix too long. Do not knead. Let rise until doubled.
3. After rising, split into 2 rounds and place on greased cookie sheet. Let rise again until doubled. Preheat oven to 425º F.
4. Brush tops of bread rounds with egg white or melted butter and then sprinkle with garlic salt or other seasonings.
5. Bake at 425º F for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 375º F and cook additional 15 minutes or until golden brown.