Bread, cheese and ‘the barre’

I’ve been filling these few final days of holiday between jobs with various pursuits from baking bread (more of that later), reading, listening to endless foodie and other podcasts and going to X-tend Barre classes.  I took up this exercise class a few months ago and just love it.  It’s described as “Pilates and dance amplified” which is probably why it suits me as it is two things I like.  I am not a gym bunny, and am hopeless at motivating myself to exercise, so these classes suit me well.

As mentioned above, I also decided to have a go at making some bread.  I honestly can’t tell you when I last did this, but finding I had bought some strong flour instead of plain flour, I got myself some yeast and had a go.  I wanted an easy recipe that would produce a quick loaf.  In the end I decided to go with this one for ‘Basic Focaccia’.

All you need is

1 teaspoon white sugar, 7g active dry yeast, 1/3 cup warm water, 2 cups (250g) plain flour, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt

In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar and yeast in warm water,  Let it stand until creamy which takes about 10 minutes.  Combine this yeast mixture with the flour, stirring well.  Stir in additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all of the flour is absorbed.  When it all comes together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly for about 1 minute.

Lightly oil a clean bowl and place the dough into it.  Turn to coat with oil on the other side.  Cover with a damp cloth and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in volume.  This takes about 30 minutes or so.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 250C.  Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly.  Pat out the dough into a sheet, and place on a lightly greased baking tray.  Using your thumb, make nice little indentations on the top before brushing the dough with oil and sprinkling with a good, course salt and rosemary  Bake for 10 – 20 minutes depending on how crisp you want it and if you have a fan assisted oven like I do.

It was a nice textured bread, easy to make and gave me confidence to make more.  I tried it with some Kapiti Kahurangi blue cheese, a firm favourite of mine.