Blueberry focaccia

Focaccia, the hearth bread

It was the Romans who gave us focaccia, alongside many other things. Focaccia was the simplest flatbread, made from flour, water and olive oil, baked directly on the stone or brick floor of the domestic fire, the hearth. It had spawned successors all over the Roman Empire, with the French fougasse and the Spanish hogaza baked to this day.

In time the flat bread has risen somewhat into airy, dimpled slabs often topped with herbs, onions, tomatoes and more. The most popular regional Italian variation comes from Liguria, but Tuscan or Puglian focaccias are delightful as well.

So many focaccias

Onions, tomatoes, rosemary and salt are apparently the most common toppings, but there is a surprising number of sweet focaccias.

The simplest focaccie dolci from Piedmont are enriched with sugar and milk, and topped with a sugar syrup drizzle. Elsewhere, fruit is used to sweeten and enhance focaccias, from raisins and grapes to citrus or berries pressed into the crumb. Tuscan harvest bread, schiacciata, with the dough sweetened with sugar and stuffed with raisins and grapes, is a good example.

But you can also encounter focaccias filled with chocolate, sweetened ricotta, cinnamon sugar, cream cheese frosting and a streusel topping, though those tend to be produced by the American Italian bakery culture.

It’s a very dolce focaccia

And so my recipe sits at the sweetest and richest end of the focaccia spectrum, with the dough incorporating an egg, milk and a little butter. And the topping is blueberries covered with a scattering of sweet crumble – which makes you forget about the more traditional versions considering how delicious it is.

Lovely with a cup of tea or coffee, it also makes an excellent breakfast, truly Italian and continental in style.

How to make the dough

It’s quite a straight forward process, with all the ingredients mixed together and worked to sticky dough.

It is undoubtedly easier to make with a food processor or a standing mixer, as by hand it will take a good long while to become smoother, more elastic and less sticky.

But once it gets there, that’s most of the job done. It needs to prove in bulk to double in volume, for about an hour in a warm place.

Shaping and adding blueberries

It’s best baked in a large-ish baking tray lined with parchment, which serves to avoid a blueberry juice mess burning onto the tray.

Stretch the dough to the size of the tray, with a help of a rolling pin if needed. The final stage of the rolling out best be done on the parchment, otherwise it will be impossible to transfer the rolled out slab.

Once it’s in the tin, sprinkle the blueberries all over it and press them gently in.

Crumble topping

This is optional, but so delicious! It turns the quite plain albeit enriched dough into proper dessert. It’s an ordinary crumble mix: butter, sugar and flour, scattered over the blueberries.

Baking

It doesn’t need to prove the second time once in the tin and blueberries and crumble are added. Off it goes straight away into a moderately hot oven, for about half an hour.

And although it is without a shadow of a doubt best warm or very warm from the oven, thanks to the crumble it will keep fine a day or two, well wrapped. You can also warm it up briefly in the oven before serving on the following day.

Variations

Instead of blueberries, any other fruit can be used as long as it’s not too wet. Firm raspberries, pitted cherries, quarters of apricot or apple chunks will work very well.
You can skip the crumble, or scatter almond flakes all over the fruit instead.

More focaccia recipes

Plain focaccia with rosemary and salt flakes; easy to make, divine to eat, warm or cold. Authentic Ligurian recipe from Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat.

Schiacciata con l'uva (pronounced ‘ski-a-charter’ and meaning 'squashed'), Tuscan grape focaccia is a sweet version of the flat bread, with grapes and raisins.

Grape and blue cheese focaccia flavoured with dried oregano. The savoury version of the Tuscan schiacciata, an easy flat bread with olive oil, fresh grapes and crumbled blue cheese which can be swapped for goats cheese if preferred.

More blueberry bake recipes

Blueberry, almond and lemon loaf cake by Ottolenghi with the sugar amount cut down a little by CuisineFiend. It’s still a masterpiece of a cake – all credit to Ottolenghi.

Blueberry poppy cake recipe; this is a blueberry pie or blueberry tart but a little different, the crust made like a sponge cake. Easier to make than a blueberry pie, this blueberry poppy cake is delicious warm or cold.

Blueberry buckle cake recipe with buttermilk in the cake mix and quinoa flour crumble topping. A buckle cake is a butter cake with soft fruit and streusel topping. This blueberry buckle gets a tangy flavour from quinoa in the crumble.