Cheese and Bellpeppers Focaccia

After pizzas, my kids just love focaccia. This Italian bread is prepared with yeasted dough and can be topped as much as like pizzas. I love to add more veggies as toppings when its comes to focaccia, however sometimes i wont hesitate a second to sprinkle some grated cheese over it. This time when i prepared the dough for the focaccia, i know i will go for both red and green bellpeppers as the topping with mozzarella cheese. Instead of sauting the bellpeppers, i just chopped them as tiny bites,trust me they gets well cooked while baking. Focaccia topped with bellpeppers came out extremely well with wonderful flavors. When served with a bowl of soup,this bread makes a filling dinner.One can have this focaccia simply with the soup or else with a cream cheese spread. However we had this focaccia without any spread for our dinner few days back.

To preserve the moisture of this bread, olive oil is spread over the dough by hand or with a pastry brush. Do you know even sweet focaccia exist. Sweet focaccia or focaccia veneta is a cake, its a typical of Venetian Easter tradition, and the dough is prepared with eggs,sugar and butter instead of olive oil and salt.

For Dough:
2tsp Instant yeast
1+1/2tbsp Sugar
3+1/2cup Bread flour
1tsp Salt
1/4cup Olive oil
1+1/2cups Warm Water
Olive oil for brushing

For Toppings:
1cup Red and green bellpeppers (chopped)
1/2cup Mozzarella cheese (sliced thinly)
1tsp Thyme leaves
Kosher salt (as per need)

Put the yeast,sugar,flour,oil in a bowl of processor,pulse a couple of times to mix well.

Add in the warm water and knead until you get a soft elastic dough.

Remove the dough from the processor and shape it round, arrange in a greased bowl and let it sit until they double their volume (it may take an hour)

Punch down the dough and divide as 2 portions.

Roll each portion or press out evenly as a flat shaped disc.Let it rise for 20 minutes.

Lightly oil your finger tips and press into the dough creating evenly spaced dimples in it.

Generously brush the dough with oil.Sprinkle the chopped bellpeppers, grated mozzarella,thyme leaves and kosher salt over the bread.

Bake at 350F for about 20-25minutes till the crust turns golden brown, remove the focaccia from the oven.

Remove from oven.

Cut the focaccia into slices and serve hot with a bowl of soup.

Bake-a-thon 2014

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