Summer is probably not the best season to prepare sweet focaccia, as we know that turning on the oven doesn’t help the temperature in our kitchen, but how cakes rise during this time is unparalleled.
Thanks to the fact that I’m home on vacation and it’s not too hot, I decided to prepare a sweet yeast bread for the joy of our breakfast. I got the idea from a book I bought a long time ago titled Fairy Tale Recipes by Elissa Piccinini and Camillo Bacchini. In the section “Fairy Tale Bread” we find some recipes that have characterized some very famous fairy tales, the sweet flatbread of Hansel and Gretel, the bread of Tom Thumb, and Little Red Riding Hood’s sweet focaccia. I decided to prepare this one, adding a filling of butter and cinnamon to make this focaccia even more delicious. I also modified the amount of yeast from the original recipe taken from a late-nineteenth-century cookbook. I’ll write the original recipe for accuracy, and below in the ingredients, you’ll find my modification.
1 kg of flour – 4 eggs – 100 g of sugar – 60 g of butter – 120 ml of milk – 60 g of butter
“One day the mother said to Little Red Riding Hood: «Look, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of focaccia and a bottle of wine, take them to grandmother who is weak and sick, they will help her recover…».”
If you’re in the mood to try some “rising” recipes, you might like these:
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Cheap
- Rest time: 3 Hours
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 8 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: English
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 393.42 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 59.39 (g) of which sugars 23.96 (g)
- Proteins 8.44 (g)
- Fat 14.76 (g) of which saturated 9.02 (g)of which unsaturated 5.36 (g)
- Fibers 1.40 (g)
- Sodium 74.14 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 115 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for Little Red Riding Hood’s Sweet Focaccia
- 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs (large)
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp fresh yeast
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Tools
- Stand Mixer
- Loaf Pan
Preparation of Little Red Riding Hood’s Sweet Focaccia
Dissolve the fresh yeast in warm water with a teaspoon of sugar.
Place all the dry ingredients in the stand mixer bowl and start the machine with the paddle attachment to combine the mixture. Just for a minute.
Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl.
Melt the butter in the milk and let it cool.
Start the stand mixer and pour in the milk with butter, the water in which you dissolved the yeast, the vanilla extract, and finally the pinch of salt.
Pour the egg mixture in two additions and continue working the dough until it’s smooth and uniform and comes away from the sides. If needed, you can add a tablespoon of flour.
Cover the stand mixer bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled, it will take at least a couple of hours.
After the rising time, take the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Shape into a rectangle 12 inches high by 20 inches long.
Prepare the filling. Melt the butter and let it warm. In a bowl, mix the butter with the cinnamon.
Cover the entire surface of the sweet focaccia with the melted butter and sprinkle it entirely with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. You need to use all of it, even if it seems too much.
Cut the dough into six equal strips vertically, you’ll have six strips 3-3.5 inches wide and 12 inches high.
Stack the strips on top of each other, collecting any sugar that falls. Cut again into six equal parts.
Butter a loaf pan and place the squares one after the other, vertically, arranging them neatly. Again, collect any sugar that falls.
Let rise for 30-40 minutes, the stacked pieces will fill the entire pan.
Bake in a preheated oven at 340°F for about 30-35 minutes. If the surface darkens too much in the first few minutes of baking, cover the sweet focaccia with aluminum foil and continue baking.
Once ready, let it cool slightly, remove the focaccia from the pan, and serve.
Little Red Riding Hood’s sweet focaccia is delicious warm, but it keeps well wrapped in plastic wrap for a few days.
The recipe is adapted from the blog Joy The Baker
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FAQ
What is Fairy Tale Recipes about?
This book explores the ancient significance that some foods have had in the history of fairy tales, including a curious cookbook where culinary art is linked to the most ancient literary tradition. From Tom Thumb’s bread to Pinocchio’s tripe, from Rapunzel’s salad to Hansel and Gretel’s sponge cake, each recipe carries something lost and precious, showcasing different cultures that transport us to Afanasyev’s Russia, Perrault’s France, and our own Italy. Food, the foundation of human life, surpasses mere nutritional necessity to become a true symbol of a state and existential condition. And, as in fairy tales, food is a ritual instrument, a magical passage to the invisible, or a miraculous means to change reality. An enchanted way to know and rediscover the typical dishes of every fairy tale, either among adults or in the company of the little ones.
