Garlic (and Parsley) Hearthbread

This is the first thing I've made from How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. At first, hubby was testy with me for buying 2 more of her books on amazon, but after eating this bread, he had no problem with the purchase. As Nigella says, this is a mix between an nan and focaccia, and what that means is my ideal bread. I love bread - have we established that before? - especially this bread that is so fluffy and flavorful inside with a nice crisp crust outside and garlic garlic and more garlic.


Okay. You'll notice it's in the shape of a heart. I PROMISE I didn't do that on purpose. After splitting the dough in half and forming balls, I rolled one out and it looked like this. Craziness!

Garlic and Parsley HearthBread:
from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, pg 306

• 3 1/2 cups white bread flour (I actually did buy bread flour for this recipe)
• 1 package quick-rise yeast
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 1/3 to 1 2/3 warm water
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 3 large or 4 small heads of garlic
• olive oil
• flat leaf parsley
• salt

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, yeast, and salt. Pour 1 1/3 cups warm water into a measuring cup and stir in the 5 tablespoons of olive oil.

Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients, stirring to make a soft, firm dough. Turn onto floured surface and kneed until smooth and elastic. Form into a ball, and place into an oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover and let rise until doubled - about an hour.

While the bread rises, cut the tops off the garlic and place them on squares of foil. Drizzle with olive oil then make a loose, but tightly sealed pouch with the foil. Cook for 45 minutes; they shouldn't be too mushy. Mine might have been a tad overcooked. After 45 minutes, remove them from the oven, open the packets, and let them cool a bit.

Turn the oven to 400F.

Tear the parsley leaves from the stem, putting a handful in the food processor. I didn't use parsley because the store bundles it so you have to buy entirely too much and I never use it all. Nor do I have a food processor; I just have a magic bullet thing. Yeah, the one from the infomercials. ANYhoo, add the garlic cloves to the food processor - you should be able to squeeze the cloves out of their skins - and process/blend. Add in olive oil to form a runny paste. I think my paste wasn't runny enough, even though I added what seemed like a good deal of olive oil.

After the dough has doubled, punch it down and let it sit for 10 minutes. Divide it in half, forming each half into a ball. Place each ball on a sheet of parchment paper and roll out to an oval or rectangular (or if you're cool like me) heart shape, then press it out a little more with your hands. Put each half - still on the parchment paper - on its own baking sheet. Cover with a towel and let rise for about 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, poke the dough a lot to dimple it. Give the garlic blend one more go in the processor, then pour (or in my case, spread) this over the breads.

Put the baking sheets into the oven and bake 20 minutes or until the bread is golden. Mine baked for about 15 minutes. Drizzle the delicious bread with olive oil and sprinkle it with salt before serving.

This should serve about 4 people.


I sliced up tomatoes to eat with my bread, which was super tasty. Hubby wanted to dip his into pizza sauce, which we didn't have. This would be tasty would cheese too. You could also sprinkle more herbs on top. I'm really interested in using this bread in a sandwich, almost muffaletta style. Mmmm ... need more bread ...