If you have wanted to try your hand at making homemade bread, but the task sounds way too daunting, this focaccia bread recipe is a perfect get-started-with-making-bread recipe. Focaccia bread is a pretty forgiving bread recipe.

Ingredients:
500gms plain flour,
1 tbsp salt,
1 tsp instant yeast,
250 ml water,
100 ml olive oil,
10-15 cloves of garlic, gently crushed
100 gms cherry tomatoes,
5-6 sprigs of rosemary, leaves removed

Method:

1. Follow the instructions on the yeast packet.
2. Place the crushed garlic cloves in a bowl and pour hot olive oil over them. Let it rest for 20 minutes before you use it.
3. Put the flour, yeast, salt and most of the oil and the water into a deep vessel. Knead for 4-5 minutes until the dough comes together. It should clear from the sides of the vessel  but still stick to the bottom of the bowl.
4. Cover with cling film and let it rest for 2 to 3 hours in a warm place.
5. Punch down the dough and roll it out into a rectangle of about 2.5cm/1 inch thickness.
6. You can either make this free-form on a baking sheet brushed with oil, or fit it into a 11 inch square pan.
7. Poke dents into the dough, brush with garlic oil, place the garlic pods, cherry tomatoes, and rosemary leaves.
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown on the top
9. Serve warm with butter.

Recipe Notes:

• This recipe makes enough dough to make two sheet pans worth of focaccia bread. You can always cut the recipe in half if you don’t need that much.
• You can always freeze leftover focaccia. But who are we kidding fresh bread tastes way better than reheated, thawed out frozen bread?
• You can freeze half of the focaccia dough and bake another whole focaccia bread later. This dough keeps quite well in the freezer.
• The great thing about making a focaccia bread, besides the fact that it is so easy is that you can make it however you want it.
• You can make it on the thicker side if you like a nice soft and fluffy chunk of bread or you can roll the dough out a little bit thinner, which is usually my preference.

It is best served warm, just from the oven, either on its own as a pre-dinner nibble or as the bread to accompany the main meal. Try it plain and simple with a glass of deep red wine and maybe a wedge of cheese on the side. It’s really quite delicious!