Bake a Bread and Feed Africa - Focaccia Bread

I was tagged recently by Shibani of Any One Can Cook for The Breadline Africa (a charitable organization located in Cape Town, South Africa) Worldwide Blogger Bake Off Challenge. Breadline Africa carries a strong purpose of being an African based charity organisation that can help break the cycle of poverty within Africa by helping communities to help themselves. By doing so it encourages communities to achieve long term self-sustainability and basically "stand on their own feet".

The purpose of this baking challenge is to try and raise US$1 million in funds to help alleviate poverty in Africa. The funds raised will be used to convert shipping containers into food production and distribution centers. These centers will act as community kitchens which will provide warm meals, hope and a sense of security to the poorest of the poor. Breadline Africa Worldwide Blogger Bake Off challenge aims to use each donation towards feeding the poor of Africa while spreading the word of compassion through blogs and internet users.

Please click to the below links for more information on this worthy cause.

Join our campaign.
Submit your bread baking recipe.
Make a donation to Breadline Africa.
Vote for your favourite recipe.
Bake a loaf of bread and blog about it.
Bake many loaves of bread and host a bake sale.

So in reading this message and you feel that you can help in one way or another, please do so. I think all of us are blessed that we don't have to worry when or where our next meal will be or what it would be! We have choices. We are able to taste the fruits of our baking and cooking when majority of those in need of help may not even have tasted a basic butter cake before. So for this worthy cause, I decided I’ll bake some bread and also spread the word around via my blog.

I had been wanted to make focaccia bread for some time now and I guess this would be the most opportune moment. To search for a worthwhile recipe I even went to my usual data-source i.e. the library and checked out a recipe book purely on focaccia. However the recipes published inside it, although mouth-watering, seemed somewhat time consuming as it called for a starter dough and a bread dough – also the instructions seemed complicated and a bit unsequential. So the next reference source had to be the internet. I finally narrowed my search to a "no knead" focaccia recipe - wow how simple can this get! Plus proofing time takes less than an hour



Focaccia Bread
Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 envelope Fleischmann's® RapidRise Yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2/3 cups water (120°F to 130°F)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoon of dried garlic flakes
1 1/2 tablespoon of Italian Herb Seasoning
½ teaspoon of sea salt

Method:

1) Mix flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add olive oil and water, stirring until well mixed. (The dough will be extremely sticky but don't worry.( Pour into greased 13x9-inch pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. (If you are using a cling wrap or cloth, try not to let it touch the top of the dough. My mistake here as I had such a hard time peeling the cling wrap off.)

2) Using the handle of a wooden spoon (lightly grease the handle first), push multiple holes into the dough.

3) Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over dough. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, garlic flakes and Italian herb seasoning. Sprinkle the top with sea salt. (In fact you can use whatever topping or seasoning on this bread eg. sundried tomatoes, sliced pitted olives, etc and it’ll taste great)

4) Cover and let rise additional 15 minutes while oven preheats to 375°F. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until lightly browned.

5) Cool slightly and cut into slices. Serve with a hot bowl of soup or alternatively dip it into a saucer of balsamic vinegar and good olive oil. Best eaten on day it is baked.