Focaccia with Ham and Melted Gruyère (Delia Smith)

I know that the combination of ham and cheese can never go wrong in our family... especially anything with gruyère cheese. We are not just chocoholics and I reckon that we are cheeseaholic too! Whenever I served food with good quality Parmesan and gruyère, the cheesy layer of the food is always gone extremely quick. I'm always in the process of hunting down the cheese-stealing mouse in our house but never seem to be able to catch it! -LOL!

I know that we all will love this focaccia when I first saw this recipe from Delia Smith. The recipe suggests the use of either fontina or gruyère and I have chosen gruyère for its extra nutty taste and sharpness. The recipe uses 350g of cheese to make this mid-size focaccia which I reckon this amount of cheese might be too much to fit in. With much effort of stacking, I can managed to pack in only 200g gruyère in our foccacia... maybe because I wasn't playing tetris enough in the 90s? - LOL!

Despite that we had a reduced amount of cheese in our focaccia, the melting cheese was sufficient enough to ooze out of freshly baked bread. As I was serving it, we were all excited seeing this...

We love the oozing cheese flowing out of this freshly baked foccacia.

The beautiful filling ingredients in this bread

A big stack of filling packed in this mid-size focaccia

There is more than just packing the bread with ham and cheesy fillings...

Stacks of ham and cheese sliding off my focaccia after I took my first bite... Ops!

Here's the recipe from Delia Smith
(with my modification or notes in blue)

For the dough:
9 oz (250 g) strong white bread flour, plus a little extra for dusting
1 level tsp easy-blend dried yeast
1 dessertspoon olive oil, plus a little extra for greasing
1 level tsp salt
 
For the filling:
175 g sliced Parma ham
(I used 200g thinly sliced honey roasted ham which is also 97% fat free)
350 g Fontina (or Gruyère)
(I used 200g Gruyère)
3 tbsp chopped fresh sage leaves
freshly milled black pepper

For the top:
15 small sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tbsp olive oil
1 level tsp sea salt
(I used fleur de sel)
Pop the ingredients for the dough, including 5 fl oz (150 ml) water into the breadmaker in the order your manual instructs. Set it to the dough only setting (as the focaccia is going to be baked in the oven) and press the start button.
Meanwhile, towards the end of the time, prepare the filling ingredients, separating the slices of ham and cutting the cheese into thin slices. When the dough is ready, remove it from the machine, turn it out on to a flat, lightly floured surface, divide it into two and then roll out one half
to form a rough, rounded rectangle about 11 x 8 inches (28 x 20 cm).

Then place it on a baking tray (I greased my tray first with extra olive oil) and arrange the slices of ham on top, making sure they go right up to the edge. Follow this with the cheese, right up to the edge again, then scatter over the sage. Now give it a good seasoning of freshly milled black pepper. Then roll out the remaining dough, lay it on top of the first, pinching the edges together all the way round to completely enclose the filling. Now cover it with a clean tea cloth and leave it to puff up again for about 30 mins (60 min for mine). Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C) (or 180°C fan forced).

When the dough is ready, make 15 little dimples in it with your finger and press in the sprigs of rosemary. Finally, drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle with the salt. Bake for 20-25 mins, or until the dough is crisp and golden. Serve the focaccia, cut into squares or wedges, straight
from the oven.

Note: I baked mine at 180°C fan forced for 30 mins.

Happy Baking
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