Hocus Pocus Spell Book Focaccia Bread
Serve this Hocus Pocus Bread at your next spooky party! If you haven’t tried focaccia bread art yet this Halloween themed recipe is easy and fun to put together. Make it a part of your charcuterie spread with plenty of dips, or pair with soups and salads for a festive side dish!
Keep reading for detailed instructions. For the nuts and bolts, click this link to jump to the recipe card!
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When Hocus Pocus 2 came out I hosted a viewing party, which I highly recommend because it was so fun! While I was browsing Hocus Pocus themed food ideas all I was seeing was the cute Sanderson sister charcuterie board, and desserts.
Then I remembered I had been wanting to try my hand at focaccia art and starting looking at Halloween themed ones when it hit me: Spell Book Focaccia Bread! I couldn’t find it anywhere so it took a bit of trial and error but the results were amazing!
Ingredients
- Focaccia dough: Use your favorite recipe (coming soon!) and follow the directions up until the final rise in the baking pan.
- Eggplant: You will only need the skin, you can also simply use all zucchini skin, but the color is great for the spine of the book. Note that peeled eggplant starts to oxidize and turn brown, cook it up the same day in another recipe!
- Zucchini: Again you will only be using strips of the peel. Peeled zucchini will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
- Onion: Red onion is the best for the added color, but any standard onion will work.
- Olive: Large black olives are ideal, but kalamata or green olives are good too.
- Chives: The long flexible herbs are easy to work with. Find them in the produce section of your grocery store, they may only have them in the little plastic herb containers.
- Olive Oil: Extra virgin olive oil is preferred, but feel free to use any mild oil.
- Salt: Splurge on a good flaky salt like Maldon, or use your favorite sea salt.
How to Prepare the Decorations
- Use a very sharp knife or vegetable peeler to carefully remove strips of skin from the eggplant and zucchini. Peel lengthwise.
- Make the strips as wide and as long as possible, you can always cut them down smaller.
- Once you have the strips, use a sharp knife to make skinny rectangles out of the eggplant peel. You will likely have to make more than one to go the length of the loaf.
- Cut two rounded triangle shapes from the zucchini peels to create the snake heads.
- Make the lock that surrounds the eye by slicing two half ovals from the eggplant or zucchini skin.
- Alternatively you can wrap a few chives together to form a circle, I like it both ways!
- Slice the edge of an onion at a bit of an angle, try to get through 2-3 layers of the onion. Choose one of the sliced layers as the eye.
- For the center of the eye, cut the tip of an olive off, I prefer to use the end with the little star.
How to Make Hocus Pocus Bread
- Start with the eggplant spine on the left hand side of the dough.
- Next place the red onion slice in the middle of the right side, and put the olive slice in the middle of the onion.
- Surround the onion with either eggplant or zucchini skin cut into half ovals, or intertwine a few chives to create a circle.
- Now use the chives to create a design that mimics the stitches on the spell book.
- Use strips of zucchini peel to create the body of the snakes, then add the heads.
- Drizzle olive oil over everything so it is coated, you can use a brush or your fingers to gently spread it around. Then sprinkle with salt.
- Finally use your fingers to press the toppings into the dough and poke a bunch of holes all over.
- Now you can bake until golden brown!
Variations
Try experimenting with different toppings based on your taste preferences and what is available in your area. Basically anything can work, just make sure to slice it thin! Here are some of the best toppings for focaccia art that I didn’t use this time around:
- Bell peppers, standard or mini size.
- Green onions
- Cherry tomatoes
- Asparagus
- Mushrooms
- Squash
- Radishes
- Capers
- Cured meats like salami, pepperoni, or prosciutto
- Cheeses
- Parsley
- Basil
- Rosemary
- Thyme
What to Serve With Spell Book Bread
You can simply slather this focaccia bread with butter, but it’s also fun to pair it with more dippers! Try any of these ideas:
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Roasted garlic (mash it and spread it)
- Compound butter
- Hummus
- Bruschetta
- Tapenade
- Tzatziki
- Soft cheese
- Soup like tomato bisque
For a full Hocus Pocus food menu, serve this focaccia bread with any of these dishes:
- Hocus Pocus charcuterie board
- Pretzel sticks stuck in peanut butter to look like witch brooms
- Spell book brownies
- Candy apples
- Black cat cookies
What is the name of the Hocus Pocus spell book?
The name of the spell book from Hocus Pocus is the Manual of Witchcraft & Alchemy. Legend has it that it came from the Devil himself, and is made of human skin with human blood ink!
If you make this recipe please do me a favor and leave a rating and review below! And don’t be shy, make sure to share it on Instagram and tag @redfermentedgrapes!
Hocus Pocus Spell Book Bread
Ingredients
- Focaccia Dough Use your favorite recipe up until the final rise in the pan.
- Eggplant
- Zucchini
- Red Onion
- Black Olive
- Chives
- Olive Oil
- Flaky Salt
Instructions
- Wait for the dough to rise in the baking dish.
- Peel slices of eggplant skin, then cut the strips into rectangles.
- Place the eggplant rectangles on the left side of the dough.
- Slice a circle from the outer layers of the onion and place it in the middle of the right side.
- Cut the tip of an olive off and set it in the middle of the onion.
- Arrange the chives all over to look like the stitches on the spell book.
- Peel the zucchini and wrap slices into circles to form snake bodies and put them on the top and bottom corners of the right side of the dough.
- Cut two rounded triangles from the zucchini skin and use them as heads for the snake.
- Coat everything with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
- Use fingers to poke holes all over and press the toppings down into the dough.
- Bake according to bread recipe directions.
- Let cool slightly before removing from pan and slicing.
Notes
- Coat your fingers with a little olive oil when poking the holes to prevent sticking.