Vegan Double Chocolate and Salted Caramel Focaccia!

Because I'd almost guarantee you've never had focaccia like this! 

I've made a fair few focaccias now, including a Feta, Grape and Fennel Focaccia, and a gluten-free Garlic, Chilli, and Rosemary Focaccia, but this loaf is unlike any other, and is definitely up there with my favourites! 

A bit of an impulse bake, this Double Chocolate and Salted Caramel Focaccia is also vegan friendly!  I've never made a sweet focaccia before, but it's no surprise that the method is very similar to savoury ones!

This bread was hard to 
photograph, made even harder
by my limited camera skills!

To start, a simple dough is made by combining strong white flour, cocoa powder, a little sugar, and yeast with tepid water and olive oil, before kneading to a smooth dough. The dough is then left to proof until doubled in size, which in this case took a little over an hour, before being knocked back and pressed into a rectangular tin. The dough is then proofed for a second time, until it just about reaches the top of the tin, which again took roughly another hour.

Pictures really don't do this
loaf justice! 

Before baking, the dough is drizzled with more olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and topped with chopped vegan dark and vegan milk chocolate (with the cocoa powder in the dough I guess this means the focaccia is actually triple chocolate? But with my inability to get hold of any vegan white chocolate I didn't really feel like I could call it triple chocolate!). 

The bread looks pretty cakey, 
but the texture was surprisingly
close to a standard focaccia loaf! 

Whilst the focaccia was in the oven, I prepared the salted caramel. This salted caramel, courtesy of Freya Cox, is made by melting caster sugar, adding in vegan butter, followed by vegan pouring cream (I use Elmlea, which always works perfectly for me!). As it turns out, the whole "don't stir your caramel orit will crystallise" fear is just a myth (thank you Matt Adlard for that little myth-buster!). After adding the cream, the salted caramel is left to boil for a minute, allowing any crystallized sugar to melt. Once boiled, salted is stirred through to finish! 

Once baked and cooled, the only thing left to do was to drizzle the salted caramel over the focaccia, and dust with icing sugar!



Once I can track down some vegan white chocolate I'd love to have a go at making this a proper triple chocolate focaccia. But for now, it is enough to say this focaccia didn't last two minutes in this house! 

Gibby x


 

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