Red grape focaccia and mozzarella cheese

Red grape focaccia with mozzarella and rosemary. This focaccia is light, fluffy and has a good combination of sweet and savoury flavours. It's suited to sharing as an appetizer or snack and is sure to be a big hit.

We made this red grape and mozzarella focaccia a few days ago and loved it, so did our boyfriend. Bright purple juicy bursting grapes that are so sweet and good with bubbling mozzarella on top. Focaccia is easy to make, you need to wait a few hours to let the doughy goodness rise and then it's a case of throwing whatever takes your fancy on top and voilà an incredibly impressive and good focaccia awaits you. It's great to make when you have some friends over, for a party or barbecue or for snacking on basically any time of the day.

We always get greedy when it comes to focaccia, yes we stuff our mouth with big slices because it's so good and then we get SO full afterwards but it is so worth it. There are so many easy focaccia recipes out there and so many different varieties. Living in Italy you see it everywhere and it varies from each region from extra thin and oily to the thicker, softer kind like our tomato and anchovy focaccia and this red grape one here.

Since moving to Tuscany we're all about the thick focaccia. Salted with rosemary, sliced in half and filled with beautiful Italian Percorino and prosciutto cotto or sprinkled with cheese and tomatoes and baked to perfection. It was time to try something new and out of the norm and a savoury red grape focaccia with oozy melted mozzarella was the one!

The sweet and savoury combination is solid here and the roasted red grapes are extra good. We chose to lightly fry them first with a little oil, salt and a sprinkling of thyme before scattering them over the focaccia, we could've eaten them on their own they are good as they are. However once sprinkled over the light pillowy dough and topped with mozzarella we knew this lovely thing that came out the oven was going to be great!

Ingredients

Makes 6 people

• 3 1/3 cups (500g) 00' flour
• 15.2 fl oz (450ml) lukewarm water
• 2 1/4 tsp (7g) fast action dried yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 7 oz (200g) red grapes
• 4.4 oz (125g/1 ball) mozzarella
• 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper (to season)

Method

1. Measure 100ml (around 1/2 cup) of warm water and add the yeast and sugar to the water, leave for 5 minutes. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add a tsp of salt at one side of the bowl.

2. Add the yeast water mixture then gradually add the rest of the lukewarm water, mixing the dough until you have a smooth dough. If the dough is too sticky gradually add more flour.

3. Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes then placed in a well oiled bowl covered with cling film and leave to rest for 3-4 hours.

4. Wash and cut the red grapes in half. Heat a small frying pan with a tsp of olive oil and add the grapes, thyme and a little salt. Toss the grapes for 2 minutes until softened slightly, set aside.

5. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees°

6. Once the dough has risen for a few hours knock it back and place the dough on a large oiled baking tray, it should be around 2.5cm thick.

7. Using two fingers make dimples all over the dough and sprinkle with a tsp of olive oil. Scatter the grapes on top and tear up the mozzarella over the focaccia. Sprinkle with a little extra a salt then bake for 20 minutes. Let it cool for a few minutes then cut into slices and serve.

Kitchen notes

Please note this recipe was tested and developed using metric measurements all imperial measurements are approximate