Look how beautiful my decorated focaccia is! Do you like it?
If you have just prepared a focaccia dough and now don’t know how to decorate it… well then!, you’re in the right place! 😀

〰〰〰

👇

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Inexpensive
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 4
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

Simple dough with licoli (or other dough as desired)
Carrots
Cherry tomatoes
Leeks
Wild fennel
Chives
Green olives (pitted)
Mint (leaves)
Sage (leaves)
Rosemary (flowering)
Mixed seeds

Tools

Knife kitchen knife
Knife paring knife
Peeler / Vegetable Peeler

Preparation

To make these decorations, you can use any vegetables you have available, just rummage a bit in the fridge and pantry, because I assure you that it takes very little to recreate flowers, grass, and leaves. 🙂

Herbs can also be used, preferably fresh, which can be used as leaves, but also as flowers, if in bloom. As you can see from the photo, I used flowering rosemary.

In addition to the ingredients I listed, many other vegetables can be added: zucchinis or pickles cut into rounds or strips, capers and black olives, red onion, tender stalks and leaves of celery, broccoli and cauliflower florets, friggitelli peppers, mushrooms (which I had prepared but then didn’t use). Also red and yellow peppers, which I really wanted to use to add a touch of color but unfortunately I didn’t have any. 🙂 That means it will be for next time!

Prepare the ingredients and proceed as follows:
– wash – or peel as needed – all the chosen vegetables and herbs
– slice carrots, cherry tomatoes, leeks, and other chosen vegetables to use for flowers
– carve carrot slices with a small knife to make flowers
– cut leeks into thin strips, lengthwise, to make stems
– halve the cherry tomato slices, which can become butterfly wings
– the body of the butterflies is a simple piece of chives (can be replaced with leek or celery strips)
– the tree-like shape is a stem of wild fennel, in its absence it can be recreated with celery
– briefly toast seeds in a pan (I used flax, chia, and sesame seeds), which can be used to represent the soil
– but they can also be used un-toasted, for example, I scattered some un-toasted sesame seeds in the “sky”
– some carrot pieces are the sun rays
– and the seagulls are strips of the inner part of the leek, which I also adapted as a leaf.
Place everything on a leavened dough (I used my simple dough with licoli) spread on a baking sheet, using this decoration of mine as a guideline. But most importantly follow your imagination! 🙂
I took a photo inside the oven while it was baking, here it is 🙂
For baking, generally consider 425°F for 25-30 minutes. I recommend checking the baking, especially towards the end, to avoid the thin stems from drying out.