When Playing With Your Food Leads to Something Great

Food tastes better when it’s pretty, and focaccia happens to be an excellent medium for making edible art. For my fourth bake with “Dough’sephine Baker” — that’s what I’ve named my sourdough starter — it’s the focaccia from Bittman Bread that I’ve also made into a gardenscape. 

I didn’t make any changes to the recipe in the book, just added a little extra effort with toppings. Between the third and fourth folds, I started prepping the vegetables. This batch used scallions, cherry tomatoes, shallots, and nasturtium leaves. After the fourth fold (it’s the same four folds as described in the book), I placed the dough in a parchment-lined 10” springform pan, gently dimpled the dough with my fingertips, and thought about my design; the veggies go on after the fourth fold and the dough is in the pan.