Soft potato focaccias for me are indelibly linked to my paternal grandmother. In fact, for many years, the tradition in our house was to make bread once a week, in large quantities, to be baked in the wood-fired oven on the farm.

The thing I remember most pleasantly is the time when we could eat ‘Torta del forno‘, a version of soft potato focaccias that my grandmother prepared by adding a boiled and mashed potato, extra virgin olive oil and salt to a loaf of bread. The new small dough (or sometimes large dough for everyone’s desire to eat this amazing food) was rolled out with a rolling pin, cut into strips of about 15x7cm and thrown onto the bricks of the wood-fired oven to test its temperature. Indeed, our wood-burning oven never had a thermometer, so based on the colour of the surface of the bread strips we could tell if the oven was too hot, and so we had to wait to bake the bread, or was not hot enough, and so we had to burn more wood inside.

These scones are a tribute to that flavour, although baking in a wood-fired oven certainly gives different aromas and flavours. However, I can assure you that my grandmother really liked this version.

Soft potato focaccias

43.66g carbohydrates per 100g

Ingredients

• 400g water
• 300g potatoes
• 220g gluten free multi-purpose flour mix, brand Massimo Zero**
• 170g flour mix for bread, brand Caputo Fioreglut**
• 60g wholemeal rice flour*
• 30g buckwheat flour*
• 40g extra virgin olive oil
• 16g yeast
• salt, oregano, cherry tomatoes, olives, rice flour for shaping

**Ingredients specific for celiacs

*Ingredients whose labels must read “gluten-free” (or, in Italy, present on  Prontuario AIC)

Preparation

1. Boil the potatoes, peel, mash and let them cool.
2. Knead the remaining ingredients, form a dough ball, brush it with a little oil, cover it with cling film and let it rise for 1.5 hours or until doubled in volume.
3. Knead again with the planetary mixer adding the mashed potatoes, mix quickly well, then take spoonfuls of the mixture, roll it out first with your hands, then with a rolling pin using plenty of rice flour, and with a pastry cutter cut out discs about 2 cm thick and 10 cm in diameter. Place them on a baking tray covered with baking paper and let them rise again for about 30 minutes.
4. Brush the surface with a little oil and season to taste with oregano, olives, tomatoes, etc.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for about 40 minutes.
6. To watch the video recipe, click here

Version with cluten of Soft potato focaccias

Replace the Massimo Zero and Caputo flours with wheat flour and reduce the amount of water to 300g.