Focaccia masterpieces: every loaf a little painting
If Vincent van Gogh hadn’t been a painter but a baker, his loaves would probably have looked as beautiful as the work of the Vineyard Baker. She turns her focaccia into true works of art, using wafer-thin slices of bell pepper, olives and onions.
Baking bread seems very simple, but once you get started, you soon get the idea that cold fusion might be more achievable. It comes down to a few ingredients, but so many details: what is the moisture content of your bread, how warm is the flour and how warm should the water be, how much yeast do you add and do you go for fresh yeast, dried yeast or make your own sourdough starter? How much salt, and when do you add it? Kneading: briefly, for a long time, by hand or with a machine? Will you make rolls, buns, a loaf or a braid? In short: there are ministers making simpler decisions right now than the home baker.
Keep your ear, bake a loaf
Got all that out of the way? Then comes the decoration. Vineyard Baker has elevated decorating her loaves to a true art form. She makes beautiful focaccia with little paintings on them: flowers and landscapes, and of course everything is edible. She is called ‘Vincent van Dough’ on the internet, because her impressionistic breadworks bring to mind the legendary wheat fields of our own Vincent. If he had become a baker, his loaves might have looked like this too. And then he might have been able to keep his ear intact.
