Vegan Garden Focaccia with a Creamy Soy Yogurt Dip
In case you didn’t already know: I love creative projects. Decorating things and visualizing ideas is my passion if I may say so myself. When it comes down to the scenario that the certain creative project then also includes vegan treats or baking, I’m 100% sold. So it was kind of inevitable that I’d recreate this 2020 social media baking trend for my own blog once again, after trying it out for my sponsored content for the first time last year.
Decorating a fluffy focaccia dough with various kinds of veggies for a solid hour before baking while listening to some chill lo-fi tunes sounds like the most perfect recipe developing experience to me. If you may not relate with that sentiment, you could also just dump all the veggies you like onto the dough and create some abstract artwork. No judgement here!
and here comes the recipe for this:
Vegan Garden Focaccia
with a Creamy Soy Yogurt Dip
Ingredients:
for the focaccia:
650g all-purpose flour or light spelt flour*
2 tsp dry active yeast (about 7g)
1 tsp sugar or sweetener of choice*
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil + a little extra for drizzling over the dough
400ml lukewarm water
veggies, herbs and seeds of choice (e.g. yellow bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, radishes, red onion, fresh chives, spring onion and pumpkin seeds)*
another pinch of salt and further seasonings of choice
for the soy yogurt dip:
150g unsweetened soy yogurt
1 clove of garlic or some garlic seasoning
some fresh chives
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt, black pepper and paprika powder to taste
some fresh parsley (optional)
spring onion (optional)
1/2 red onion (optional)
Instructions:
To make the focaccia dough, dissolve the dry active yeast in the lukewarm water, add the olive oil and sugar 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 veggies and herbs.
Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer to a baking tray lined with parchment paper and spread it into shape of your choice. That will work best with either a silicone spatula or slightly wet hands, as the dough is more on the stickier side. Spread the dough slightly thicker then you would do with pizza dough.
Now decorate your focaccia dough with the veggies, herbs and seeds however you like!*
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Brush the dough generously with the extra bit of olive oil and let it rise for about 15mins once again.
Sprinkle some salt and optional further seasonings over the focaccia and bake for about 30-40mins until golden brown.
While the focaccia is baking, prepare your soy-yogurt dip. Start by chopping the chives, parsley, spring onion, garlic and red onion. Then combine everything with the soy yogurt and season to taste. You can also sauté the onions and garlic prior to adding them to the dip if you’d like.
Once the focaccia is golden brown, let it cool down for a few minutes, then serve right away while it’s still fresh and fluffy!*
Edible artwork.
*Notes:
If you want to use whole wheat flour you may need to reduce the amount of flour by 50g, as whole wheat flours tend to soak up more liquid!
You can use whatever sweetener you like. Agave, rice- or maple syrup all work well in my experience!
To decorate the focaccia, almost all kinds of veggies work well. To make a flower-y garden focaccia like this, I like to use fresh chives, parsley and spring onion for the grass, stems and leaves of the flowers, yellow bell pepper, radishes, cherry tomatoes and red onion rings for the flowers and different kinds of seeds for smaller leaves or seeds. Carrots, pointed peppers or olives also work well for flower decorations!
To make a garden decoration like this, I’d suggest you start with the grass and stems for the flowers, then create the petal shapes and then move over to the smaller leaves and seeds. That way you’ll get some nice layers and a beautiful and artsy result!
The focaccia also freezes very well! Just cut it into smaller pieces, place inside a freezer safe container and use a toaster to easily defrost the slices. Like that you’ll have fluffy and fresh bread whenever you want!
Did you make this recipe?
leave a comment or tag me on Instagram @choartemi