Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia

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I cannot thank blogger friend, Monique (of the La Table De Nana blog), enough for letting me know about this crazy easy, amazingly delicious recipe for focaccia. After reading her Instagram post the other day, I found myself in the kitchen at 10:30 PM stirring the dough together. It took only a matter of minutes to come together; overnight it doubled in size. The following morning I dumped it into a pan, let it rise again, gave it a poke or two, topped it with flaky sea salt, everything bagel seasoning, and red onions and chopped Kalamata olives, and baked. Here is the end result, after brushing it with garlic butter. Incredibly good! I don’t know which topping is better, so I’m going to continue to experiment with toppings, and regularly bake this delicious bread. One final note, do NOT be put off by the length of this recipe. It is from the Bon Appetit Baking School and very detailed. Make this once, and you will no doubt have committed it to memory.

By the way Monique says that it halves beautifully, adding that she bakes her half amount in a cast iron pie pan. This is a must try! Your family will gobble it up!

Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia

​1¼-oz. envelope active dry yeast (about 2¼ tsp.)

2 t. honey

2-1/2 c. lukewarm water

5 c. all-purpose flour

1 T. Morton kosher salt

6 T. extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for hands

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, plus more for pan

Flaky sea salt

½ clove Melissa’s Elephant Garlic

​Whisk yeast, honey, and water in a medium bowl and let sit 5 minutes (it should foam or at least get creamy; if it doesn’t your yeast is dead and you should start again—check the expiration date!).

Add flour and kosher salt and mix with a rubber spatula until a shaggy dough forms and no dry streaks remain.

Pour 4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil into a big bowl that will fit in your refrigerator. This puppy is going to rise! Transfer dough to bowl and turn to coat in oil. Cover with a silicone lid or plastic wrap and chill until dough is doubled in size (it should look very bubbly and alive), at least 8 hours and up to 1 day. If you're in a rush, you can also let it rise at room temperature until doubled in size, 3–4 hours.

Generously butter a 13”x9” baking pan, for thicker focaccia that’s perfect for sandwiches, or an 18”x13” rimmed baking sheet, for focaccia that's thinner, crispier, and great for snacking. Pour 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil into center of pan. Keeping the dough in the bowl and using a fork in each hand, gather up edges of dough farthest from you and lift up and over into center of bowl. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat process. Do this 2 more times; you want to deflate dough while you form it into a rough ball. Transfer dough to prepared pan. Pour any oil left in bowl over and turn dough to coat it in oil. Let rise, uncovered, in a dry, warm spot until doubled in size, at least 1½ hours and up to 4 hours.

Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 450°F. To see if the dough is ready, poke it with your finger. It should spring back slowly, leaving a small visible indentation. If it springs back quickly, the dough isn’t ready. Lightly oil your hands. If using a rimmed baking sheet, gently stretch out dough to fill. Dimple focaccia all over with your fingers, like you’re aggressively playing the piano, creating very deep depressions in the dough (reach your fingers all the way to the bottom of the pan). Drizzle with remaining 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Bake focaccia until puffed and golden brown all over, 20–30 minutes.

Hold off on the last step until your ready to serve the focaccia:

Melt 4 T. unsalted butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Peel and grate ½ of the elephant garlic clove with a Microplane grater. Return to medium heat and cook, stirring often, until garlic is just lightly toasted, 30-45 seconds. Brush onto focaccia.

Plum Streusel Pie

While many people's list of favorite fruits more than likely doesn't include plums, I have to say that the plum is one of mine. When ripe, it is sweet and juicy; in cooking, it can turn the most mundane dish, from savory to sweet, into something very special. It has more uses than almost any fruit I know. It makes an incredible crisp, tasty crumble, decadent butter, a fabulous accompaniment to pork, kicks Major Grey's backside when it comes to chutney (sorry Major, but it's true), makes an incredible coffeecake, and a delectable pie.

My mother used to make plum pies that were legendary. People always raved about how delicious they were. I'm not a pie maker or a pie eater, but I am a fan of plums, so decided I was going to give this plum pie a whirl. What made this recipe interesting to me was that it had a streusel topping (something I far prefer to yet another slab of crust because I'm not a crust person), and was topped with homemade lemon lime ice.

I made the ice earlier in the week, and was completely won over by it; you can find the recipe here. Today I'm giving you the recipe for the pie, both from Bon Appetit magazine, both outstanding.

 Plum Streusel Pie with Lemon-Lime Ice Milk

As seen in Bon Appétit, June 2003

Crust*

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 t. sugar

1/2 t. grated lemon peel

1/4 t. salt

1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 egg yolk beaten to blend with 3 tablespoons cold water

Filling and topping

3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/2 cup flour

3 T. packed brown sugar

1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon

3 T. chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 t. ground nutmeg

1 1/2 pounds Melissa’s Plum Bites halved, pitted, cut into wedges

1 large egg beaten with 2 teaspoons water (for glaze)

For crust:

Blend flour, sugar, lemon peel, and salt in processor. Add butter; using on/off turns, cut in until pea-size pieces form. With machine running, pour egg mixture through feed tube and blend just until dough forms ball.

Gather dough into disk; wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made up to 3 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.)

Roll out dough between 2 lightly floured sheets of waxed paper to 1/4-inch thickness. Peel off top sheet of paper. Invert crust into 9-inch glass pie dish; peel off paper. Fold edges under to form rim; crimp edges. Refrigerate 1 hour.

For filling and topping:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Mix walnuts, flour, brown sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in medium bowl to blend. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until coarse meal forms. Set streusel aside. Whisk 3/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, and remaining 1 teaspoon cinnamon in large bowl. Add plums and toss to coat.

Place pie dish on baking sheet. Brush inside of pie shell lightly with egg glaze. Transfer plum filling to pie shell, mounding slightly in center. Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over filling. 

Bake pie 15 minutes; reduce oven temperature to 375°F. Bake until filling bubbles at edges, about 35 minutes, covering crust edges with foil during last 15 minutes if browning too quickly. Cool pie on rack. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.) Cut pie into wedges. Serve with Lemon Lime Ice Milk.

* I used a Ready Made Crust from Pillsbury. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not as good as homemade. In this case, I beg to differ, it was fantastic (and I saved one heck of a lot of time)!

PRINT RECIPE

This post is linked to:

What’s for Dinner Sunday

Happiness is Homemade Sunday

Dishing It & Digging It

Cooking & Crafting with J&J

Amaze Me Monday

Busy Mondays

Art of Homemaking Monday

Celebrate Your Story

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays with a Twist

The Scoop

Dream, Create, Inspire

Carrot-Walnut Loaf Cake

Breakfast is a tough meal for me. I want something tasty, varied, with a modicum of nutrition, that pairs well with coffee, and I want it NOW!  The last, I mean the very last thing that I want to do the first thing in the morning is cook. Cold cereal, with the exception of my homemade granola, leaves me, well, cold, so I tend to gravitate toward something make ahead. When I spotted this recipe in the current issue of Bon Appetit, and knowing it was a “special request” recipe (although recent experience with that had me wary, more about that tomorrow), I decided to give it a try. This is a winner! A recipe from the acclaimed Breads Bakery in New York, the creator says that if you only have an 8½"x4½" pan, there’s no need to go out and get a new one. Simply hold back about 1¾ cups batter for later—it makes a mean waffle! Can you imagine?! If only I had the wrong size pan I'd be enjoying this as a waffle, but no matter. It is a subtly spicy, slightly sweet, incredibly moist, addicting mouthful that is deliciously satisfying. I think I'll have another slice.

Carrot-Walnut Loaf Cake

From Breads Bakery by way of Bon Appetit

1 cup vegetable oil, plus more

1¼ cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour; plus more

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup golden raisins

½ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

3 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 ounces carrots, coarsely grated (about 2 cups)*

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly oil and flour a 9x5" loaf pan. Whisk baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and 1 ¼ cups flour in a small bowl. Toss raisins, walnuts, and remaining 1 Tbsp. flour in another bowl.

Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs and granulated sugar in a medium bowl until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. With mixer running, gradually drizzle in 1 cup oil, then add vanilla. Fold in dry ingredients, raisin mixture, and carrots; scrape batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake cake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 65–75 minutes. Let cool slightly in pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Do Ahead: Bake up to 2 days ahead. Store wrapped at room temperature.

SERVINGS: MAKES ONE 9X5" LOAF

*Here's a tip from me. Even though it is more trouble, grate your carrots by hand. Grating them in a food processor, though convenient, tends to extract juices leaving the carrots drier than need be. Never buy bagged grated carrots to use for baking. They are way too dry to be able to enhance any baked good.

This post is linked to:

Melt In Your Mouth 
Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday 

Before and After Monday 

Tutorials and Tips Tuesday

Baby Potatoes with Cipolline and Dill

Are you ready for a sumptuous side dish that tastes so delicious, and is so tremendously easy, that surely your mind will blow? Wait until you hear about this. Onions and potatoes. Nothing new you say?  How about Dutch Baby Potatoes and Cipolline Onions?  Sound more interesting? Whether it does or whether it doesn't, two men in my life who would happily pass up potatoes, both stuffed themselves with these to their surprise and to mine. Mr. O-P, a notorious hater of potatoes tried them only because I had dazzled him the week before with this recipe. He loved them!  My dad didn't get his short ribs and potato dinner until the following day. I'd given him enough meat and potatoes for two meals. He said the potatoes and onions were so good that he kept going back for more and eventually ate them all!

When I spotted this recipe in an old issue of Bon Appetit, I laughed at how boring it appeared. No way, I told myself, could butter, onions, and potatoes, in any combination, come together to make a dish that tasted anything other than mundane. Boy, was I wrong. 

I blanched and peeled the onions ahead of time, and made this dish during the first three innings of the ballgame. Now if you know me and baseball, you know that I wasn't paying one bit of attention to these potatoes. I had short ribs in the crockpot (tremendously good - short ribs, a packet of onion soup, and a cup and a half to Chianti, cooked on “low” all the live long day), a salad at the ready, and these potatoes. What a perfect pairing. On my busiest of days, this is going to be my “go to” meal. Company's coming?  Great!  They'll love them too.  

Baby Potatoes with Cipolline and Dill

Bon Appétit, November 1998

1 pound Melissa’s Cipolline onions
3 tablespoons butter
2 pounds Melissa’s Baby Dutch Yellow potatoes (each about 1 to 1 1/4 inches in diameter)
3 tablespoons minced fresh dill

Cook cipolline in medium saucepan of boiling water 3 minutes. Drain; rinse with cold water and peel. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes; stir to coat. Cover skillet; cook potatoes until golden and almost tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Mix in cipolline. Cover; cook until cipolline and potatoes are tender and golden, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes longer. Mix in dill and 1 tablespoon butter. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl.

This post is linked to:

Tasty Tuesdays

Wow Us Wednesdays