Focaccia Bread
Posted on: August 28, 2020. Updated on: July 12, 2023.
by Carolina Gelen
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The one and only, focaccia, a bread that is smeared in oil and dimpled before baking! It can be used in sandwiches or other dishes, or eaten on its own with just some good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The mess will be worth it for this one!
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Focaccia Bread
Ingredients
GRAMS
- 750 grams bread flour can be substituted with all purpose flour, but the result won’t be as good and as well structured, plus you might need more AP than the recipe calls for
- 555 grams water
- 25 grams fresh yeast or 7 grams active dry or instant dry yeast
- 10 grams salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
- extra virgin olive oil for greasing the tin, bowls and drizzling on top of the focaccia, 80-100 grams oil should be enough
- any additional toppings like za’atar, cherry tomatoes, olives, fresh herbs, etc.
CUPS
- 5 cups bread flour can be substituted with all purpose flour, but the result won’t be as good and as well structured, plus you might need more AP than the recipe calls for
- 3 1/3 cups water
- 1 tablespoon active dry or instant dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
- extra virgin olive oil for greasing the tin, bowls and drizzling on top of the focaccia, 1/3 cup of oil should be enough
- any additional toppings like za’atar, cherry tomatoes, olives, fresh herbs, etc.
Instructions
- Let’s start with a very optional step, that makes quite a difference. Again, it is optional, so if you do not have the time to do it, it’s okay!Mix the yeast with equal parts water and flour and leave it in the fridge overnight. I usually do 100 grams of each or 2/3 cup flour with a bit less than 2/3 cups water and write down the quantities in order to know what to subtract from the recipe the next day. For example, if you’ve already mixed 100 grams of flour with 100 grams of water, the next day you will continue with 455 grams of water and 650 grams of flour.
What this step does is it makes the yeast more active, it’s sort of like feeding a sourdough starter, it revives it and makes it more hungry and powerful.
- In a bowl, mix the water and yeast (or the sponge that you made the previous day if you have not skipped step 1) together until the yeast (or sponge) has fully dissolved.
- Next, add all the flour and the salt to the bowl and mix with a spatula or with a wooden spoon until the flour is roughly incorporated.
- Next, it’s time to knead this dough!Here are some about that:
- this bread dough is sticky, it has a 74% hydration, so it’s supposed to be sticky, this will yield more gas formation in the focaccia, leaving us with more of an open light crumb;
- if you are uncomfortable with how sticky the dough is, feel free to add more flour as you knead the dough to ease the process a little bit;
- if you are kneading this by hand, like I do, I suggest working with oiled or wet hands, this will somewhat prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers, making the kneading process a lot easier;
- you can either roughly knead the bowl in the dough (less messy, less structure), or on the work surface using the slap and fold method (a lot messier, but a lot more structure in our bread), where you literally lift up the dough with both hands, then slap the dough onto the table folding it onto itself;
- if you truly feel uncomfortable kneading the dough, you can most certainly skip this step, especially if you are planning on proofing it overnight in the fridge, your focaccia will have less structure and less large bubbles forming, but it will still be absolutely delicious.
- knead, knead, knead!
- Once our sticky focaccia dough has been kneaded, it is time to proof it. Shape the dough into a ball, using your oiled hands and place it in a large, very well oiled bowl or container and cover it (to prevent any air from getting in there and drying up the dough.You can either:
- let it proof in a warm place until doubled or tripled in size, this will take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours (mine took one hour and 30 minutes to get there, but it really depends on the temperature of your room) – this method will give you a not so bubbly focaccia (still bubbly, but not as bubbly as the one proofed overnight).
- let it proof in the fridge overnight – this method will lead to a more flavorful, very well structured and bubbly dough, so if you have the time to do it, I suggest going for this method for the best result!
- Once you are done with the first proofing session, whether you did it overnight or at room temperature, it is time for the second proofing stage, which will happen in the tin that the bread gets baked in. Therefore, choose your baking dish! There isn’t a particular dimension you need to go for, all you need to know is that the wider the baking tin is, the thinner the focaccia will be and vice versa. You don’t want the focaccia dough to overflow right from the start, keep in mind that the dough will double in size in the pan, so choose the dish accordingly. Also, you do not want to go for a baking sheet, you want something with ridges that will contain the dough while proofing and while baking.
- Once you chose the dish you will bake the focaccia in, it’s time to oil it up! Because I’m not giving you a specific baking pan dimension, I can’t give you the amount of oil you need to add. Just drizzle some extra virgin olive oil at the bottom of the pan and spread it all over the bottom and the sides of the pan using a brush or your hands. You want to be generous, but you also don’t want the dough to fully sink in the oil. The oil should be about 0.3 to 0.5 mm or 0.01 to 0.02 inches high in the pan!
- Using your well oiled hands once again, you want to gently drop the dough in the baking dish, in no particular shape, it’s too sticky to bother with shaping it. Cover the baking dish and let the focaccia rise at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours or until doubled in size. I suggest covering the baking dish with another baking pan with ridges that leaves a lot of room for the dough to rise up. If the dish is not deep enough, something like a towel or cling film will just stick to the dough once it has risen, which is not what we want.
- Preheat the oven at 250°C or 480°F.
- Once the dough has risen, drizzle some more olive oil on top. Oil your hands, once again, and dimple the dough using your fingers. Sprinkle salt on top of the focaccia or any additional toppings of choice and bake the focaccia until golden brown on top. It could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour, so keep an eye on it, check on it from time to time!
If making in a stand mixer- how long do I need to run it for?
can’t wait to make this!
Hi Sandra! I would say 5-7 minutes should do the job 🙂
Best focaccia I ever made. Will add the xtra night next time and expect even better results on the fluffiness factor. Thank you!
I am so happy to hear that, PJC!
Hi, Carolina!
I made your focaccia today and it‘s absolutely delicious! I couldn‘t really get it out of the baking dish though. I used a glass dish.
Any idea why? Or what I could do next time for a better release? Have I not used enough oil? Thank you!
Hi Bela! I would say that is usually a pan issue, maybe next time you could line it with some parchment paper, that should help.
Ah just made this today. I’ve had bad luck with focaccia before but this turned out sooook good! Thanks for the awesome recipe (っ’-‘)╮=͟͟͞͞
First focaccia I ever made and it’s soooo lovely! Defo gonna try the overnight method next time and probably less oil too (my bad aha!). Love this recipe (and all your others on insta too), 100% ready for try some more
Hey just trying to figure out in the longer one, it’s a total of 3 days proofing right?? Thanks
Sooo yummy! making my third batch in 2 weeks tonight haha!
Best focaccia I’ve ever made!
Great focaccia recipe! I over night proofed the sponge (because timing worked) then proofed 2 times in one day then baked. The result was beautiful. Scary how wet the dough is and I was appreciative of the video tutorial. I also topped it half/ half one with Z’atar and the other half with rosemary. Simple beautiful focaccia. Crunchy and flavorful. Sometime I will overnight both. Thank you Carolina!
Thank you for the recipe!! I made a successful foccacia!!!! Dawn in Sacramento
Hi Carolina! So my dough didn’t quite look like yours(bubbly) after the first overnight proof and then didn’t rise too well:( it was still so yummy! Do you know what could have happened? Thanks!!
Great recipe! One thing— the weight measurement in grams is off here for water. So if you are using a scale, I would measure out the water in cups and not grams. The 555 grams will yield a dry dough and focaccia is meant to be very wet/sticky. Otherwise, everything else worked out great! Thanks for the recipe, Carolina!
Hi Carolina, this focaccia looks so good !
I did step one yesterday and the mixture was all bubbly and spongy but this morning it just looks like regular dough without any bubbles.
What happend to it ? Can I still use it like this ?
I made this and let it sit in the fridge for proofing like you recommended, but mine never got super bubbly. I did leave it in the fridge for a couple days (kind of like you did recently). Could this be the reason it did not get bubbly? Like it possibly over proofed? It tasted amazing but the crumb wasn’t as good as I was anticipating.
Hi Carolina! I tried this recipe today. And it turned out really good. Thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed the whole process of Focaccia making 🙂
Love your recipe ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Also used it to make pizza a few days ago and it was just amazing!
Thank u for doing all of this
I just made it, so good! How do you store it so it doesn’t get dry, in case there are leftovers?
Can I use the proofing oven the second time or should I stick to overnight proofing in the fridge?
Can I use active sourdough starter instead of dry yeast, if so would I use the 25 g suggested ?
Hey! I love your recipes! I am trying to make this right now for a dinner party i’m having tonight (last minute, I know) and I only have AP flour so that’s what I used. The dough looks too wet and isn’t holding any ball shape, do you know how much more AP I would need to add?
Thank you! 🙂
I made this using the overnight method.. Could feel the airiness when dimpling but I think I left it in the oven for toon long as it’s quite crispy… Arghhh but the recipe was easy to follow. Will give it another go
hi there!
if i want to add lots of tomatoes and herbs to it, do i add it right after second proofing (before baking)?
thanks!
Really enjoyed making this, especially the slapping it on the bench for kneading! I think I over done it on the oil part as the bottom of the bread didn’t form a crunchy texture. Will be interesting in seeing the difference with the overnight proofing. Thanks for sharing your recipe Carolina I also enjoy you Insta page too !
This is a great focaccia recipe. I made a spelt version for someone and it was good. Now I’m going to make the normal version but checking on times: What does overnight mean? 24 hours or 12 hours or…?
What do I pre heat the oven to?
I love your recipes and try as many as I can! This focaccia recipe is the one I come back to every time. So fluffy and flavorful, and a great base if you want to add toppings 🙂
That makes me so happy!
Best,
Carolina
The website seems to have crashed. Would anyone have a copy of the recipe or a copy of the video? My dad and I wanted to make this recipe this weekend.
https://carolinagelen.substack.com/p/the-perfect-dinner-party-bread here is the recipe 🙂
I’m email it to you now.
Best,
Carolina