​This is what you make when you want a Jam Doughnut but you don't feel like making jam doughnuts. You want to make something that tastes like a jam doughnut, but it involves far less effort. 

Bread making has honestly become a central part of my cooking adventure, I'm loving it. You get a different bread every day, different tastes, different textures, it's honestly very rewarding.

Here a simple focaccia is converted into a sweet treat. Every bite is delicious.

You will need a piping bag here, or a sturdy snap lock bag.

​If you do want to try making doughnuts, here is my favourite recipe. 

And anyone that wants to learn how to make different focaccia flavours should follow lace bakes on instagram, she's amazing.

This really is so much easier to make than doughnuts and definitely something you need to try.

​Recipe adapted from Instagram _lacebakes_

Makes 1 focaccia

For the dough:
500g white bread flour
420g warm water
6g instant yeast
5g honey
1 tablespoon caster sugar
15g extra virgin olive oil
10g fine sea salt

For the filling:
1 cup raspberry jam
(piping bag needed)

For the glaze:
1 cup (125g) pure icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the pan: 
Sunflower oil


In a large mixing bowl, add the warm water, yeast, honey, sugar and extra virgin olive oil. Mix with a wooden spoon. Add in the flour and salt and mix together until you have no dry patches. Sometimes I find using a damp hand, I give the bread 5-6 kneads, just to incorporate the flour better. The dough does not stick to a wet hand.

Cover the bowl with beeswax wraps or plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.

Now it's time to stretch and fold the dough. Release the dough from the side of the bowl, using a damp hand. This will deflate it. Perform a set of stretch and folds on the dough. To do this, wet your hand, then take a section of the dough furthest from you and stretch it up and fold it onto itself towards you. Rotate the bowl 90° and repeat the process. You need to do a total of 8 stretch and folds. You will get the dough roughly shaped like a ball. 

Cover the bowl again and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Repeat the stretch and folds again. After this stretch and fold, using damp hands, gather your dough and place it seam side down into the bowl, so the top is smooth.

​Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 1.5 hours at room temperature.

Prepare your 22cm x 33cm baking tray. Put a teaspoon of sunflower oil in your tray, spread it around. Scrunch up a piece of baking paper that is cut larger than your tray, unscrunch it and place it in your baking tray, pressing into the corners.

Pour 2-3 tablespoons of sunflower oil into the centre of your pan. 

Place dough in your prepared pan. Now, oil your hands and fold one side of dough towards the middle of the dough. Repeat with the other side, like folding paper into thirds. The flip the dough so the seam is at the bottom and spin it so that the long ends are parallel with the long sides of the tray.

Let it sit to proof, at room temperature for about 1.5 hours. During this time the dough will puff up and fill up the tray.

When you have 30 minutes left of proofing time, preheat your oven to 220C/200C fan forced. Place your oven rack in the lowest position in the oven.

Dimple the focaccia dough (no need to drizzle any extra oil here) then bake for about 20-22 minutes or until it's a deep golden brown. 

While the focaccia is baking, fill a piping bag with your jam.

Now make the glaze by whisking together the icing sugar, milk and vanilla extract until smooth. If too thick add a little extra milk, but only so it is a drizzling consistency.

When the focaccia is out of the oven, place it on a cooling rack and let it cool for 5 minutes. Poke the focaccia with holes, use a piping tip or large metal straw. Fill the holes with jam.

Place the cooling rack onto a larger baking tray and drizzle on the glaze. Brush the glaze evenly over the top and sides of the focaccia and then remove the cooling rack, set it aside, and rub the bottom of the focaccia into the glaze that has dripped onto the tray.

​Place the focaccia back onto the cooling rack.

​Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes for the glaze to harden.

To save the recipe to your favourites go to www.whatscookingella.com/jam-doughnut-focaccia.html 
​Pin it: www.pinterest.com.au/pin/399413060720660280/

​​​​​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​So it's my anniversary, my husband and daughter are in Croatia visiting my husbands parents, my son is France with his girlfriend and I'm home with my youngest son as he's in his final year of high school and couldn't go to Europe this year. So I ask my son what should we eat today, he suggested my Ham and Cheese Pastry Sun. I though ok, I had all the ingredients at home, but the ham, but I had pepperoni, so I suggested we change it to Pepperoni Pizza Suns so I don't have to go to the shops, and he agreed.

It was brilliant. My son and I finished this off in minutes. We loved it. We would tear off an end and eat it, it was perfect as a light lunch. The filling was delicious and the crisp pastry amazing. The centre piece .I gave to my son as it his favourite part.

Now you can trim the pastry to make it round, more sun shape, but I find that just a waste of pastry and in all honesty, I'm okay with imperfection.

Don't make the strips too thin, use the picture as a guide.

This recipe is a guide only, use whatever salami you like and as much as you like, but it needs to be really thin so it will bend easily. With the cheese, I didn't really measure it, just put on a good sprinkling.

I added mushrooms and capsicums as I had them leftover in the fridge from a pizza night, don't add too many thinking it will taste better, you only need a little and too much will make your bottom pastry soggy as both release water when cooked.

I used my own pizza sauce which is delicious and easy to make. You only need 1/2 cup so make as much as you need, definitely halve the recipe at least. If you do make the whole sauce it covers 3-4 pizzas and for you to have a few spoonfuls of just sauce, my kids love just eating the sauce. It's also great as a dipping sauce with polenta chips. You could probably freeze the sauce, I haven't tried as my kids eat it.

2 x 400g cans Italian diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the oil and garlic in a medium saucepan and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and sugar. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until the sauce is thick. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

If you are looking to make a quick snack for your kids, or you have some leftover pepperoni (or even ham) to use up, try this, it is delicious.

​2 sheets puff pastry, I used Borgs
30-40 slices thinly sliced pepperoni, enough to cover the pastry in a single layer
1 cup grated tasty cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
1/2 cup tomato pizza sauce
2 mushrooms, sliced thinly
1/4 small red capsicum, sliced thinly
1 egg, beaten


Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan forced.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place one sheet of the puff pastry onto your baking paper.

Scatter the tasty cheese all over the pastry.

Place the pepperoni over the cheese in a single layer.

Dollop over the tomato sauce, and try and spread it out. It does not need to cover the pepperoni entirely.

Spread over the mozzarella cheese.

Place the second pastry sheet on top of the cheese, try and press the edges together.

Now place a drinking glass in the centre of the pastry, don't press it down, you don't want to cut the pastry, just mark it.

Now cut out from the glass to the edges, making sure you cut through to the bottom pastry sheet. Make the slices thicker, rather than thinner. The pastry can't be too hard here or it will rip.

Remove the glass.

​Now take each strip and gently twirl them, press the ends down a little.

To save the recipe to your favourites go to www.whatscookingella.com/pizza-pastry-sun.html 
​Pin it: www.pinterest.com.au/pin/399413060720506020/

​I love pies, I really do. I get excited when I watch old movies and see them cooling on farmhouse window sills, or when I watched TV shows where pies were on the counter, like at Luke's Diner or the Peach Pit. There is just something beautiful about pies.

A great pie is the perfect bite, crisp pie crust base, a deliciously fruit centre and either a pie crust top or in this case a crumble topping.

Now some people have one favourite pie crust, I don't, I have many. Just like I love different fillings, I like different pie crusts. Sometimes I have a pie crust top, sometimes I have a crumble topping. Sometimes when I don't have enough pie crust for the top, even though the recipe says I do, I have a plan B happen and I make a crumble but add pie crust 'scraps' to the crumble topping and magic happens. Here you get a crumble but you also get pie crust, I didn't know if it would work, but it sure did. 

The apple and rhubarb filling is delicious, it is my favourite pie filling, if I had to choose one. The pie crust is perfect, crisp and delicious and the crumble topping I just love, one because I don't have to rub butter into flour, here you just melt and mix, and two I love the addition of the pecans.

If you are looking to make a simple yet delicious pie , look no further, make this, it's perfect.

Recipe adapted from New Idea Food 

Serves 8

125g unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 cup custard powder

Filling:
1kg Granny Smith apples (about 6), peeled, sliced
300g rhubarb (about 4 stalks), cut into 3cm lengths
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour

Crumble topping:
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
75g unsalted butter, melted
150g (1 cup) pecans, chopped
​ 
Vanilla Custard or Ice Cream, to serve
​

Lightly grease a 22cm round loose based flan tin. Place on an oven tray.

To make the filling: Combine apples, rhubarb, sugar and 1 tablespoon water in a saucepan over a low heat. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for about 12 minutes, or until fruit is just tender. Add blended cornflour and 1 tablespoon of water to pan. Cook, stirring, until mixture boils and thickens slightly. Remove from heat. Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Cool to room temperature.
​
Meanwhile make pastry: Whisk butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a large bowl until combined. Stir in sifted flour and custard powder to form a dough. Cut 1/4 from the dough, shape into a flat disc. Shape the remaining pastry into a flat disc. Wrap both in plastic wrap. Refrigerate both pastry discs for 1 hour.
​
Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan forced.

Roll out the larger pastry disc between two sheets of baking paper to a 24cm round. Remove top sheet of baking paper, invert pastry over tin, then remove the other sheet of baking paper, The pastry might break or crack, no stress, just press pastry together and make sure it goes up the sides of the tin. Cut off any excess pastry, just put it aside, you will use this.
​
Make the crumble topping: In a bowl add the plain flour, sugar, butter and pecans, mix it all together, to combine. Now the second disc of pastry and any leftover pastry, needs to be crumbled into the pecan mix. Just break it off into smallish pieces and mix it all together.
​
Spoon filling into your pastry case. Sprinkle crumble mixture evenly over the top.

Bake in your preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until crumble and pastry is golden brown. 

​Stand pie for 20 minutes before serving. Serve with vanilla custard or ice cream.

To save the recipe to your favourites go to www.whatscookingella.com/apple-and-rhubarb-crumble-pie.html
Pin it:  www.pinterest.com.au/pin/399413060720481490/

​​​​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella