Sweet Vegan Garden Focaccia
(*ad: in cooperation with pandoo)
Well, one flowery decorated focaccia just wasn’t enough. After you guys loved the o.g. garden focaccia so much and everyone and their mother got creative and tried it with all kinds of veggies, I asked myself if a sweet version would also work as well. I mean, fluffy cakes like the german bee sting cake and sweet breads like all the various yeast braids are out there and killing it as well, right?
And fruit is always a great choice too! With a good drizzle of melted vegan chocolate and a pinch of powdered sugar to top it all off, the sweet garden focaccia emerged!
(…Plus I can spend some more hours decorating dough while listening to chill baking playlists! A win-win situation for me!)
and here comes the recipe for this:
Sweet Vegan Garden Focaccia
Ingredients:
325g all-purpose flour or light spelt flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp active dry yeast
3 tbsp sugar or sweetener of choice*
2 tbsp oil + a little extra to brush the dough*
200ml lukewarm plant milk
fruit, nuts and seeds of choice (e.g. nectarines, apricots, apples, berries, pumpkin seeds,..)*
some vegan chocolate and powdered sugar for decorating (optional)
Instructions:
To make the focaccia dough, dissolve the dry active yeast in the lukewarm plant milk, add the oil, sugar and vanilla and set aside.
Combine flour and salt in a bowl, add yeast mixture and bring everything together on a floured surface until it forms a soft and slightly sticky dough.
Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm space for about 1 hour until doubled in size.
In the meantime wash and prep your fruit.
Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer to a baking tray lined with parchment paper and spread it into shape of your choice or place inside a greased round cake tin. Flattening the dough with either a silicone spatula or slightly wet hands will work best, as the dough is more on the stickier side. For this focaccia it’s alright if the dough is a few centimeters thick.
Now decorate your focaccia dough with the fruit, nuts and seeds however you like!
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Brush the dough generously with the extra bit of oil and let it rise for about 15mins once again.
Sprinkle some more sugar over the dough or brush it with some liquid sweetener and bake your focaccia for about 30-40mins in the lower 3rd of your oven. If the focaccia is browning too much, cover it with some aluminium foil.
Once the focaccia is ready, let it cool down and drizzle some melted vegan chocolate over or decorate it with some powdered sugar.
Serve fresh just like that or add some jam or nutbutter for a heavenly decadent breakfast! Enjoy!
Edible artwork pt. II.
*Notes:
Like almost always with a simple yeast dough like that, you can use whatever sweetener you like! Agave, maple syrup or coconut blossom sugar should all work well too.
I like to use a rapeseed oil with a hint of vegan butter aroma for doughs like this but melted vegan butter or coconut oil as well as a neutral oil like sunflower should also do the trick.
You can use pretty much every kind of fruit you like to decorate this sweet version of a garden focaccia. I used apricots, nectarines and berries as flowers and created small leaves out of pumpkin seeds for this one. Thinly sliced apples also work amazing to shape little roses and the peel of green apples can be used for the grass and the stems of the flowers!
Did you make this recipe?
leave a comment or tag me on Instagram @choartemi