(Zagorulko Inka / Shutterstock.com)
We’ve had latte art, pretty bento lunchboxes, and now there’s irresistible focaccia art, also called focaccia gardens. This trending activity has people turning a blank bread canvas into a beautiful and healthy edible masterpiece using their favorite herbs and vegetables. They are then sharing their creations all over social media.
Making focaccia is easy, so it’s perfect for beginners and kids, and this hobby combining food, nature and art is carving a well-deserved niche in the current home baking trend that’s thriving while people are home for longer.
So what is focaccia? It’s a flat, oven-baked Italian bread typically seasoned with salt, herbs and olive oil. It’s similar in texture to pizza dough, and used as a side dish in many meals, or as a sandwich bread. It’s healthy too! It contains complex carbohydrates that slowly give the body energy, and is rich in iron and Vitamin B1. Check out these amazing focaccia art videos, and whip up a surprise treat!
1. Gardenscape focaccia
Watch the impressive kitchen cook of the Tasty Recipes channel whet your appetite while it shows you how to make gardenscape focaccia to an uplifting Philly soul track!
Massachusetts home baker, Teri Culletto (vineyardbaker), is thought to have kickstarted this focaccia art trend, and there are other stars like high school teacher, Hannah Page, aka blondieandrye.
2. Recreating Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”
Friendly home baker, “hehe it’s mcKenna”, is the first to admit that “bread happens to be kinda boring!” This has moved her to try her hand at something new. Let her walk you through her focaccia-making process, ending up with her take on artist Vincent Van Gogh’s legendary “The Starry Night” painting – and it’s rather good!
3. It’s a scream!
Here’s focaccia art from Florida-based Chef Tuan. He’s inspired by famous 1893 painting “The Scream” by Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch — quite timely for people cooped up at home at the moment, don’t you think?! As he says himself, his delicious, fluffy and crispy focaccia loaf isn’t “too crazy difficult,” just requiring a little mixing and kneading. He uses bell peppers, onions, asparagus and an eggplant to decorate.
4. Zooming in on tropical art
This calming tropical landscape is made using rosemary, caraway seeds, sage leaf spines, and orange sweet pepper. The result is a gorgeous palm tree design atop a rosemary lemon focaccia.
Curious about the origins of this Italian habit now adorning dining tables worldwide? The term focaccia is derived from Roman words panis focacius. Panis means bread, and focacius is the hearth or fireplace in Latin. In Roman times, Focaccia was cooked in ashes of fire rather on the tray above fire.
5. Add some mozzarella!
A variation on the theme, here’s a “bread art” video set to soothing piano sounds. It’s showing you how to make “mozzarella gardenscapes” bread, which contains this soft, mild southern Italian cheese melted in the middle.
6. Focaccia with a dash of ASMR
Find home baking a feast for the senses? There’s even a focaccia art video for people who think it deserves a meditative approach with ASMR! This stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. It describes a feeling of euphoric tingling and relaxation that people can feel when they hear certain sounds.
As CrunchyCut, the creator of this ASMR flower garden focaccia video explains: “I'm so inspired by sights and sounds in the kitchen, and hope you find this as relaxing and visually stimulating as I do. For this recipe, I used seasonal farmer's market provisions and a standard focaccia recipe to create fun, crafty edible art- make sure to support your community during this unpredictable time, buy local!”
