I’ve been wanting to make this since last year but the summer had ended and many of the edible flowers and herbs were not available in my garden. If you haven’t tried this yet you need to! Get some family or friends and create your own work of art using fresh edible flowers, herbs, veggies (fresh and canned), seeds, nuts, dried fruits, olives and pickles, dried beans and peas and so on. Let your imagination go as anything is possible with focaccia garden art.
Below is my first Focaccia Garden Art and I think it turned out beautifully! I was having such fun that I made two more just using any herbs or veggies I had on hand. I wanted to see what the different ingredients looked like after baking. One had a specific theme and is meant to be eaten – Focaccia Pizza Garden Art. I did make pepperoni butterflies – I had to have some meat!
To make this easy I used frozen bread dough – just a 6 hour rise period, punch the dough down and spread it out in the 15×10-inch pan with your fingers. No kneading or special steps. There are many recipes for focaccia dough or you could also use pizza dough. Because I made three I needed to cut back on the work that a homemade dough would involve. Besides I am still trying to decide on a focaccia dough to make – sourdough, self-rising flour or just AP flour.
You can see how the items looked before I baked the focaccia – the edible flowers lost a lot of their color but still provided some variety to my “art”. Items I used: nasturtiums, johnny jump-ups, chive blossoms, thyme flowers, Italian parsley, chive stems, sage leaves, black olive slices, cherry tomatoes cut in half and cut half way through to look like tulips, dill sprigs with flowers, small pepper rings, yellow corn kernels, mint leaves.
This is my second Focaccia Garden Art. You can plan ahead and make your design on a board or piece of paper and then place them on the bread dough. Some times it is better to have a plan which I did for the Focaccia Pizza Garden Art.
I used most of the following ingredients; small pepper rings, fennel fronds, parsley, asparagus, black and green olives, colorful cherry tomato slices and some cut in half, basil, snow peas, chives, green onions, carrot flowers, corn and red onion.
The third one I made was Focaccia Pizza Garden Art.
Possible ingredients: basil leaves torn into pieces, Italian parsley, chives, oregano leaves, calabrian paste or red pepper flakes, pizza seasoning, cherry tomatoes, shallots, red, yellow and orange peppers. I made flowers from the ends of the small peppers. To make it a pizza I added turkey pepperoni butterflies and flowers. I also sprinkled the dough first with garlic powder, then grated Parmesan cheese, and finally pizza seasoning and a few red pepper flakes. Then I decorated my pizza garden!
This recipe not only looks pretty but the taste is fantastic too!
Focaccia Garden Art
To make it easy I used frozen bread dough, Rhoades to be specific. See Rosemary Focaccia Bread
You do need to plan ahead as it takes 5-6 hours for the dough to rise in the oven. Then only 20 minutes to bake once you have garnished it with your choice of ingredients.
- frozen bread dough (by all means use your favorite focaccia recipe if you so desire – I don’t have one yet but I am working on it), or pizza dough
- assorted garnishes for your focaccia (see possibilities above)
With a brush, lightly grease an 8×5-inch loaf pan, the frozen bread dough and the plastic wrap you put over the bread pan. I turn on my oven light…
Allow to rise until it is 1-inch above the pan – 5-6 hours. Punch down and press into a 15×10-inch baking sheet. Allow to rest if needed to get the dough to the edges. If desired you can put dents all over the bread.
Place your garnishes artistically (or not) all over the bread until you’ve created a unique work of art.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the bread has browned.
Recipe by cookingwithauntjuju.com
Beautiful! I hope to try it with my daughter. 🙂
They were fun to design – deciding on what ingredients to use. You will love it – perfect for you and your daughter to make 🙂
Judi, you are so clever and these are just beautiful. It would be a fun project that I will try soon.
Thanks so much Bernadette – I hope you have a chance to make one (or two) maybe with your granddaughter. So many choices – the pizza one was especially good because I sprinkled on garlic powder, Parmesan and pizza seasoning 🙂
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What a beautiful presentation! And how fun to make! This would be a great way to entertain your kids on a rainy day. Cannot wait to try this myself –
Thanks – I love the look of these focaccia! It’s a great project to make with kids (and adults) of all ages. You can tell I had fun – I do have two more loaves in the freezer…
Each one is so pretty and creative, and I’m sure, very tasty! 🙂
Thanks Ronit – the pizza focaccia is the best as I added cheese and some seasonings. The asparagus needs to be cooked before adding and some ingredients were very tasty like the peppers 🙂
these do look beautiful judi. so pretty and so delish i’m sure. Great idea to use frozen dough; mm not sure we have that here …
Thanks Sherry – go for the pizza focaccia should you make one! Of course you can use any dough, even the stuff that comes in a tube in the dairy section (at least here).
in a tube? wow that’s interesting … 🙂
Yes, Pillsbury makes a pizza dough in a tube as well as mixes such as Hot Roll. There are lots of choices without having to go to a lot of trouble making the dough from scratch! Just “google” it 🙂
Very impressive!!!! 👀🍃
Thanks Gail – I felt like a kid playing with their food 🙂
They are beautiful. I’ve been seeing them all over the internet but haven’t made any since I’ve not been entertaining.
Thanks but who needs to entertain? I made the first two for fun as I like to play with my food and wanted to see how the ingredients baked. The last one we ate – pizza focaccia – it was delicious because I meant for it to be eaten. The ingredients were a good combination and the addition of garlic powder, pizza seasoning and Parmesan made it very tasty 🙂
That is gorgeous!!! I’m so impressed.
Thanks – being creative with my food!
Very clever and what fun!
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