Gluten Free Loaded Potato Focaccia Recipe

A moist potato based focaccia topped with cheese, chives and crispy bacon. This Puglian classic is stone baked and best served warm from the oven!

Yield 12 square slices

Loaded Potato Focaccia

As far as focaccias go, I'm a bit of a staunch traditionalist. Ordinarily, I can't turn down a warm-from-the-oven slice of focaccia flavored with garlic and rosemary and drizzled with olive oil. Resisting the urge to throw garlic and rosemary at this dough was difficult, but worth it!

There's mashed potato in the dough, which helps to keep it moist and the focaccia recipe only calls for four other ingredients, which helps to keep it simple! Although I added fresh chives, cheese and bacon, you could very well top this potato-y focaccia with your favorite jacket potato toppings instead. I also used this authentic 00 Italian pasta flour from Nifeislfe.com. The flour is so soft and pillowy; I was surprised at how big of a difference there is! And the flour was delivered to my door along with a box of other Italian groceries so it was insanely convenient.

I made this focaccia on a day when Callum was at nursery, so Wayne and I snuggled up on the sofa and devoured the entire tray, warm from the oven at one lunchtime sitting. Maybe you'll be able to practice a bit more restraint? Truthfully, I doubt it. This bread has that classic spring back thing going on. When you pinch a piece between two fingers it's all, "You can't keep me down!" and boings back into place. Don't worry; your dough isn't some edible Slinky hybrid; it's meant to be springy.

Today's post is all about the bread. (Oh, my poor gluten sensitivity!) I was invited by the Pinterest UK team to attend a bread making workshop just a few hours away, down in Birmingham. You can find photos and a bit more information about that at the bottom of this post. Let's get back to that focaccia!

Ingredients:

For the loaded potato focaccia
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
2 tsp active dry yeast
140 grams mashed potato
390 grams gluten free 00 pasta flour or strong bread flour
extra virgin olive oil

For the topping
bacon
shredded cheese
chives

Instructions:

Loaded Potato Focaccia

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water and stir until creamy and thoroughly combined.
2. Combine the flour and salt and place into a food processor with a knife blade attachment.
3. Add the mashed potatoes and yeast and pulse to combine.
4. Continue to pulse until the mix comes together to form a ball.
5. Remove onto a clean, dry surface and use a dough scraper to bring the dough together.
6. Knead for about three minutes until the dough is smooth and soft to the touch.
7. Lightly grease a rectangular stone baking tray with a bit of olive oil. 
8. Add the dough to the stoneware and stretch gently until it covers the entire base of the tray.
9. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
10. Cover with a damp cloth or paper towel and leave to rest 30 to 90 minutes or until the dough is twice the size it was.
11. Once risen, use your fingers to make dimples on the surface of the dough. Brush with a bit more olive oil and top with cheese and bacon.
12. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until the cheese begins to color. Serve warm from the oven.

Snazzy little Pinterest Breadmaking Workshop 

The workshop was held at Loaf in Stirchley, Birmingham. Loaf is a rustic, eclectic bakery and social enterprise with a cookery school attached to its premises, just a five minute walk from the Cadbury factory. I swear, if I lived anywhere near that area, I'd be in for a world of pain. Artisan loaves on one side of the bridge and nothing but pure chocolate delight on the other? Pfft. Self restraint, be damned. 

That's Tom Baker. Hedgehoggin' his rye sourdough.

The fab ladies charged with managing the UK Pinterest community invited about two dozen foodie pinners to the premises to engorge on lovely warm bread with locally produced honeys and chutneys. And to have a go at making some bread ourselves! Tom Baker (talk about having a calling for something since birth!) the laid back bread lover and founder of Loaf put us through our paces with fellow baker Andy. 

Together, they showed us dozens of techniques and instructed us on how to produce some pretty tasty loaves. We made all manner of gluten-filled goodies including pittas, pizzas, mini rye sourdough loaves and impressive fougasse. This was after they served us from a cutting board overflowing with warm bread. 

The entire experience, from the first slice of a seeded rye sourdough loaf to tucking the two sourdough starter pots Tom gave us into my fridge, was pleasant and knowledgeable. Meeting other food obsessed pinners was also lovely, too. The best things were all the baking tips we received like how to shape bread rolls, how to work with and shape rye sourdough and a really cool and super easy French technique for kneading dough. Here's Andy doing it like the French:

And here are two of my creations from the workshop: a fougasse and my delicious seeded rye sourdough:

Thanks to +Lizzie Gold at +Pinterest  for the invite & to Tom & Andy for all the bread & baking tips!