Fruit Focaccia

First things first. The voting for Iron Cupcake:Summer Berries is now open! My two cupcakes (Strawberry Balsamic and Alien Blueberry) are about half way down the page. The voting box is on the right hand side of the page. I will love you forever if you click here and go vote for me!!!

The Baking Beauties recipe this week was Fruit Focaccia. Normally I love focaccia, but this just didn't do much for me. I mean, it was good, and it came out great, I was just not a huge fan of the flavor. Like a fruitcake flavored focaccia. I mean, what did I expect really, I put 4 different kinds of dried fruit in it. Surprise, surprise, my favorite part of the focaccia was the crunchy turbinado sugar sprinkled over the top!

Fruit Focaccia
Adapted from Baking with Julia

4 ounces dried cranberries
4 ounces golden raisins
4 ounces dried tart cherries
4 ounces currants
3 1/2 cups hot water
3 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
5 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature

1 egg yolk, beaten with 2 tablespoons cream, for glaze
turbinado sugar, for topping

Put the dried fruit in a large bowl and cover with the hot water.
Cover the bowl with saran wrap and allow to macerate at room temperature for at least 3 hours.
Drain the fruit in a collander, squeezing out as much liquid as possible.
Reserve 1 1/4 cups of juice.
Put 1/4 of reserved juice in your mixer bowl, add the yeast and whisk to combine.
Let sit until creamy, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the rest of the juice, the honey and the orange zest.
Stir the salt into the flour and add about half the mixture to the wet ingredients.
Mix on low to incorporate, then add the rest of the flour.
After the rest is incorporated increase the speed to medium and let mix approximately 10 minutes, until dough is smooth and shiny.
Turn the mixer down to medium-low and add butter bit by bit.
Increase speed to medium and beat for 3-5 minutes, until dough comes back together.
Add the macerated fruit in 2 batches.
The dough will break and look awful. Keep faith and it will come back together in about 5 minutes.
Scrape the dough into a buttered bowl and let rest at room temperature for 3-3 1/2 hours.
After the 3 hours, stir the dough back down and cover again with wrap. Chill for 24 hours in fridge.
Fit the bottom of a jelly-roll pan with parchment, butter the paper and sides of the pan.
Turn the chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface, flour the top of the dough and gently roll, pull and stretch the dough into a rectangle the size of your baking pan.
Lift the dough as you work to dust with additional flour to keep dough from sticking. Lightly butter a piece of saran wrap and place it over the dough.
Let the dough come to room temperature and start to rise. It should take about 3 hours. It's ready when it feels spongy to the touch.
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Brush the dough with the egg glaze and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until top is deep, golden brown.

My friend Claudia has this awesome dip recipe I thought would be great with this. I liked the focaccia much better after it was dunked in this creamy awesomeness!

Claudia's Vanilla Dip

1 box instant vanilla pudding
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
2 cups sour cream

Pour the milk and cream into a medium bowl.
Whisk in the pudding mix.
Fold in the sour cream.
Enjoy!

Just a gentle reminder. . . . did you go vote??