Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Focaccia Bread

I have a confession to make.  We are obsessed.  I mean really obsessed. But it is a good obsession I think you will agree.  What, you ask, is the object of this obsession?? It's Raman Prasad's Focaccia Bread.

About a year ago, I purchased his book Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and it was love at first sight.  Jacob was the first one to try making the recipe.  When he removed the bread from the oven, we looked at each other with that "this is too good to be true'' look.  After letting it cool slightly, ok long enough to put the pan down and cut a piece, we knew it was true.  This is the most delicious Focaccia Bread and it is completely legal.

You can find the recipe for the Focaccia Bread on the SCD recipe site under cookbooks.  But I will post it here.  Also, you should consider adding this book to your collection of SCD recipe books.


INGREDIENTS
Bread
2 cups (220 g) almond flour
7 ounces (200 g) dry curd cottage cheese
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1/2 cup (60 g) grated Cheddar cheese
3 eggs
3 tablespoons (40 g) butter, melted
2 scallion sprigs, finely sliced
Topping
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon (8 g) finely grated Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375,  Grease a 9- by 13-inch
(23- by 33-cm) baking dish.
To make the bread, mix together the bread ingredients in a food processor until well blended. Remove from the blender and spread out in the greased baking dish.
To make the topping, combine the topping ingredients and mix well. Sprinkle the topping on the bread.
Place in the oven and bake until the edges brown, 30 to 40 minutes.
Allow to cool and then cut into sandwich squares. 

This bread has become a staple at my house.  We have made a slight variation though, we now bake it in my trusty muffin top pan and exclude the topping.  What we end up with is a sandwich bun that is perfect for any type of sandwich or hamburger. Just slice it through the center with a bread knife and get ready to stuff it with everything SCD legal your heart desires.   Later, I will post some of the sandwiches we have made using this bread.  We are completely in sandwich heaven.

Ok, if you are like me and were dreaming of sinking your teeth into a delicious sandwich with all the fixins then this Focaccia dough cooked in a muffin top pan is your dream come true!

14 comments:

  1. Hi! I may have to get me a muffin pan. I think jared would love to have a sandwich of any sort soon! I am wondering, if you see this, any ideas on yummy Easter treats for an SCD kid? Thanks! Tracy

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  2. Hey Tracy
    I might have a few ideas. How long has Jared been on the diet. Is he pretty much symptom free. There are meringue cookies on the pecan bread site, someone posted peanut butter melt aways on the SCDlist serve. Maybe some caramels made from honey. I think those are on the SCD recipe site. Also nomorecrohns.com has a recipe for sugar plums and cookie dough balls that are very tasty!! I also saw marshmellos on the pecan bread site. You could maybe color them with strawberry and blueberry juice. . Then legal snacks like Lara Bars and stretch island fruit leather. You can contact me directly at my.honeypie66@gmail.com if you are not able to find these recipes and I can forward them to you. Oh and I think you will love the muffin top pan. One suggestion since I posted about it is that I have ordered a new one that is not coated because the coating has started coming off of my origional pan. So you may want to consider that when ordering your pan. Hope this helps!! Have a blessed Easter Melanie

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  3. Thanks for the suggestions! I made some gummi easter eggs (small) with a mold i found at Joann fabrics and some of the butterfinger candy from no more crohns site. I think I may make a little more of each. He has been on the diet for 3 months so hopefully will be able to tolerate these. He had a larabar about a month ago and did not tolerate it so I am not trying them for a while again. I will try to make my own fruit leathers one of these days. I saw a whoopi pie pan at joann fabrics when I was there, but i think it was coated, so may need to order one. Thanks again!

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  4. Hi Melanie,
    Just came across your blog from the FB support group. This bread looks great..can't wait to make it. I was wondering where you had purchased the muffin top pan. Thanks! Nina

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  5. Hi Melanie,
    Do you know of a way to make this bread without using eggs?My idea is maybe use 1 TBSP of applesauce per egg? Did your son ever go through a stage where he couldn't eat eggs? I'm going to leave out the scallions too for now. My son is starting to do really well, but we noticed he can't tolerate eggs - hopefully this is just a stage that he will outgrow with time and staying off them for a while. But he misses bread. I made muffins with applesauce and they turn out good - a little mushy but good. But I'm not sure about the bread. If you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear them! Thanks, Terri

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  6. Hey Terri
    Oh I am so sorry that you are having trouble with eggs. I know that must make things even more challenging. I do hope he is able to get passed that. In the meantime, I am sure there is someting you can do to subsitiute the eggs. If you are making more of a generic bread and not trying to make something that tastes more like focaccia I think you could add the apple sauce and that would make a tasty little bun. I wonder too about squash if you want something with less of a sweet taste. I used apple sauce quite often in baking before SCD but not since. I have found that some times with SCD cooking if your recipe turns out a little mushy you can add a little more almond flour with out hurting the recipe. These recipes are more forgiving than regular baking. Or just cut back a little on the apple sauce. But I have heard of using squash like this also. HUMMMM got me thinking. I will have to see what I can come up with. Let me know how the apple sauce turns out. And I will let you know if I come up with other ideas. This is a good point to work on. So glad you son is doing so much better. Keep me posted.....

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  7. Thanks, Melanie. We had salmon patties for lunch today. I went in the freezer to find some pureed butternut squash - all I had was pumpkin, so I used a couple dollops of pureed pumpkin for the egg. haha! They turned out really good. So, yes, I will have to experiment with making some bread. I'll let you know what happens!

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  8. Hey Thats great!! OOOH I bet they were tasty!!! Yes, let me know when you make the bread what you think! I will look forward to hearing!!

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  9. Thank you for posting this recipe. I have the book, but it never occurred to me to use my muffin top pan this way. I made the bread in the muffin top pan and they really are shaped just like hamburger buns and they are dense enough to slice. I immediately fixed a burger with all the trimmings, and the bread held up. Food wise, this is a happy day!!!!

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  10. OH Im so glad you enjoyed this idea!! It is the best bread idea for sandwiches. So tasty and sturdy enough to hold all kinds of wonderful fixins!!! Enjoy!!! Melanie

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  11. Hi Melanie,
    I would really like to make this bread (and the sandwich) but we have dairy intolerances. Do you have any idea how we could make this without the DCCC and cheddar (and if it would still be good)? Thanks!

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  12. Hey. I actually cant eat cheese either so I make the bread for me and just leave out the cheeses. I like it but I do want to play with it to see if I can make it better. But I think in the meantime it will work well for you. Some time it can be a little crumbly. My thoughts are to add an egg white or mabe evern some butternut squash. If I come up with something better I will post. Hope this helps!! Let me know how it works for you.

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  13. This bread is awesome! I just made my first batch and I can't believe how much it resembles english muffins in texture! They give me a great idea for making breakfast sandwiches with sausage patty, egg and cheese filling. Thank you so much for the recipe!

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  14. I want to make this bread for my daughter but she is on a dairy free diet as well because of autism, so I can’t give her dry curd or butter, what can be the substitute for the same?

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