Gluten Free Baking- Simple Focaccia

Recipes reproduced with permission of sasquatch books

Focaccia has always been one of my favourite breads. I really like the comforting oiliness of it, the peppery olive flavour and the loose texture with large air spaces. It is also a bread that my Mum is particularly good at making, seeing her produce dozens of them each month fills me with jealously! Since diagnosis I am yet to have gluten free Focaccia that tastes or looks like focaccia. The unique structure and flavour of focaccia seems to rely on the presence of the forbidden gluten. 

Here is a simplified version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 tbsp chia seeds

½ cup water

1 cup teff flour

1 cup tapioca flour

½ cup arrowroot

½ cup sorghum flour

¼ cup garbanzo bean flour

¼ cup millet flour

¼ cup flax meal

2 tablespoons herbes de provence

1 teaspoon salt

1 envelope(2 ¾ tsp) active dry yeast

1 cup room temp water

5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 large onion, halved and sliced

Here is a picture of the ingredients:

1. Soak chia seeds in half cup of water for 15 mins. Heat oven to 425F (218C). Line baking sheet.

2.  Mix dry ingredients excluding yeast in bowl

3.  In a separate bowl, mix yeast, water, 3tbsp oil and maple syrup. Wait for mixture to foam.

4.  Add dry ingredients and chia seeds into wet ingredients.

5. Mix with a  sturdy spoons and by hand until a dough is formed.

6. Turn out onto the baking sheets and shape into a large oval, press small dimples into the dough.

This is the completed dough before cooking:

7. Bake in oven for 25mins.

8. Sauté onions for 8 mins in the remaining olive oil until transparent and beginning to brown.

9.  Remove focaccia, cover with onions return and bake for an additional 25 mins.

This is the focaccia just after cooking:

The onions have gone a little black, even though it was only in for around 10 of the final 25 minutes. To my disappointment the focaccia hadn’t risen at all. The look of the bread was quite good, brown and a nice shape and the smell of the onions and herbs in the dough was really appetising. This is a slice of it cut open:

The dough was very dense because it hadn’t risen very much at all. The crust was thick and difficult to bite or cut through which made eating it a bit of a chore. The flavour was probably the best thing about the bread. It tasted herby and comforting but this was let down by the difficulty in eating it. I would also have preferred it to have the familiar greasy, oily texture but this was very dry and chewy in texture. In the end I ended up throwing quite a lot of it away. It was just too difficult to eat and got more so as it got older. I’m still on the look out for a decent gluten free focaccia!