My Experience:

Overall it was fairly easy and inexpensive to make my own bread. I already had most of the ingredients in my kitchen, so I was able to pull it together very fast. The hardest part was making sure that I let the dough rise for long enough. Which I think I could have let it sit for another couple hours. But the finished product still tuned out very delicious. It was a fairly easy instruction list to follow as well. It was also much easier than I thought it would be to activate the yeast. The recipe I obtained also had the nutritional information included which pointed out that per slice there was 180 calories, 7g of fat, 24 g of carbs, 1 g of fiber, and 4 g protein. Overall it is pretty standard and because I made it at home, I knew exactly what went into making it. They were all clean and healthy ingredients. Which in turn made me feel better about eating it because I knew what I was putting into my body.  While I am having online learning I will continue to make more things because I will not only have the time but I found it so fun that the following day I decide to make a pasta from scratch which I made into ravioli for dinner for my family. This was a great experience and made me feel more comfortable in the kitchen. I will continue to do this during the break as well as after!

I used white flour in this recipe. I decided to use this because it was all I had available at home. Seeing that I have been in self quarantine for four weeks since my dad is a police chief and my mom is a nurse. I did not want to leave the house to go get whole grain spelt flour. I wish that I could have used it and will use it in the future when stay at home orders and coronavirus bans are lifted. The fiber content would be different in the two flours as stated, the flour I used had one gram of fiber. Spelt whole grain flour would have 4 grams of fiber for each ¼ cup which is much better and yields a higher nutritional value.

Recipe: Focaccia Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt 

Instructions:

1.) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the warm water and stir to form a soft and sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or up to 24 hours.

2.) After the dough has chilled, gently shape the dough into a ball with your hands. Pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the bottom of an 8-inch cake pan and spread it to cover the interior surfaces of the pan. Place the ball of dough in the center of the pan and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature for 2 hours, or until the dough has expanded to nearly fill the cake pan.

3.) Toward the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 450. Remove the plastic wrap from the pan. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the dough, then press your fingers down into the dough, pushing to the bottom of the pan. Repeat until the entire surface of the dough is covered in deep dimples. Sprinkle with the oregano, basil and sea salt.

4.) Bake 22-25 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp.