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Home Sweet Home is a column dedicated to the talented people baking up a storm at home.
As far as stay-home baking trends go, people have turned to raising sourdough starters and baking banana bread. The adventurous few might have even attempted the soft-baked burnt cheesecake that comes with a luscious, gooey centre. But there’s another baking project that’s blossoming on social media: the garden focaccia.
It’s easy to understand why these baked treats are popping up all over the Internet; the loaves are a work of art. It starts out as a blank canvas of flatbread dough that's then layered and decorated with colourful vegetables – stalks of asparagus, pitted olives, bell peppers fashioned into flowers. The result is a cheery garden collage in a sheet pan.
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“When the vegetables bake in high heat, they colour, shrink, and shrivel, each having their own reaction,” shares home baker Melissa Kweh. “It’s almost a surprise to see how they turn out eventually.”
Like most, Melissa first started baking garden focaccia during the circuit breaker. “The idea came from my love for Mediterranean flavours … and I was also missing the warm focaccia that I used to order from a little Italian restaurant in China Square,” shares Melissa. So she took a leaf out of the trending recipe to make her version of Pan de Flores, which translates to ‘flower bread’ in Spanish. An aromatic base of rosemary and olive focaccia comes garnished with fresh greens she finds at the market.
“I don’t really have a favourite vegetable to add … but if I had to pick one, it would be yellow peppers,” says the full-time marketing manager. “When it bakes, somehow they remind me of mosaic tiles.”
Melissa began by baking them for friends and colleagues. But these visual treats soon blossomed in popularity when she posted it on her baking page, @frostinginabox. Now, her Pan de Flores is available for sale – a “visually appealing and thoughtful gift” that helps add a bit of sunshine to the stay-home humdrum. Every order even comes neatly bundled up like an edible bouquet.
HOW TO ORDER Her pretty Pan de Flores ($32) are made in limited quantities. “It’s a long process from start to finish,” says Melissa. Place an order by filling up the Google Form, available at @frostinginabox. Delivery fee starts from $5, and is free for orders of two loaves or more.