KO EN Italian Bread⏱ 260 minEdit history

Focaccia (Rosemary and Olive Oil Flatbread)

Name: Focaccia (Rosemary and Olive Oil Flatbread)
Prep time: 4 h
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 4 h 20 min
Yield: 8 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour; 400 ml water; 5 g instant dried yeast; 10 g salt; 30 ml olive oil; 40 ml olive oil; 1 tsp coarse sea salt; 2 sprigs rosemary; 1 tbsp water

The flat Italian bread finished with olive oil, coarse salt and rosemary. It looks like thick pizza dough and is not made like it. The dough carries close to 80% of the flour weight in water, far too wet to knead by hand, so the gluten is built by folding it a few times instead. And just before it bakes you push your fingers right through to the bottom: those dimples hold the oil, which fries the bread from inside its own surface.

Ingredients

8servings

Dough (one 25x35cm tin)
strong bread flour · 12% protein or more; it has to carry a very wet dough500 g
water · lukewarm — 80% of the flour weight400 ml
instant dried yeast5 g
salt · added separately from the yeast10 g
olive oil · for the dough30 ml
For the tin and the top
olive oil · 20 in the tin, 20 on top; this is not the place to economise40 ml
coarse sea salt · fine salt just dissolves away1 tsp
rosemary · leaves stripped2 sprigs
water · whisked with the oil to make salamoia1 tbsp

Steps

Mix the flour and yeast in a big bowl, pour in the water and stir with a spatula only until no dry flour is left. No salt yet. Cover and leave 20 minutes. The flour hydrates and gluten starts forming on its own — the part you get without kneading.
⏲ 20 min
Add the salt and the oil, then with a wet hand grab the edge of the dough, stretch it up and fold it into the middle. Turn the bowl ninety degrees and repeat, four times. The dough sticking badly is correct — add flour to firm it up and you have made ordinary bread, not focaccia. Wet hands do not stick.
Repeat the same fold three more times, every 30 minutes. Each round leaves the dough visibly tighter and smoother. After the last one it holds a ball shape in the bowl.
⏲ 30 min
Cover and prove at room temperature until doubled, about 2 hours. An overnight rise in the fridge (12-18 hours) tastes considerably better; if you do that, take it out an hour before carrying on.
⏲ 120 min
Pour 20ml of olive oil into the tin and spread it over the base and sides with your hand. Tip the dough straight in and coax it towards the corners with oiled fingers. If it will not reach the edges, do not fight it — leave it 15 minutes and it will stretch without resistance.
Cover the tin and prove 1 hour. It is ready when the dough fills the tin and a poked finger leaves a dent that springs back only halfway, slowly. Heat the oven to 230°C now.
⏲ 60 min
Shake 20ml of oil with a tablespoon of water (salamoia) and pour it over the surface. Then spread your fingers and push them straight down until they hit the bottom of the tin, all over. Press hard. Those dimples are where the oil sits, and they are what makes the surface of a focaccia.
Scatter the coarse salt and rosemary leaves and bake at 230°C for 20 minutes, until the top is deep gold and the edges have pulled away from the tin. Give it five more if it is pale — a pale focaccia is a soggy one.
⏲ 20 min
Lift it out of the tin immediately and onto a rack. Left in, steam collects underneath and softens the base. It is at its best cut while still slightly warm.

Tips & Variations

Variations

Focaccia genovese: the Ligurian original — much thinner (around 1.5cm), glossy with oil and densely dimpled. Traditionally coarse salt only, no rosemary. In Genoa it is dunked in cappuccino at breakfast.
Focaccia barese: the Puglian one, with boiled potato worked into the dough, which makes it much moister and keeps it soft the next day, and cherry tomatoes and olives pressed into the top.
Schiacciata: what Tuscany calls it — thinner and crisper, and in the grape harvest topped with grapes as the sweet schiacciata con l'uva.
Things on top: cherry tomatoes, olives, thinly sliced potato, red onion, sage. Wet toppings have to be pressed into the dough or they roll off as it bakes.
How it differs from Margherita pizza: same family of dough, different hydration. Pizza dough is around 60% and stretches thin; focaccia is 80%, will not stretch, and makes big holes instead. Pizza goes briefly onto hot stone, focaccia sits a long time in an oiled tin.
As bruschetta: cooled, split horizontally and rubbed with garlic and tomato, this is bruschetta. Dipping it in the pesto from pesto pasta is the Genoese pairing, and caprese inside it makes a sandwich.
Where it sits among breads: baguette uses 70% water and long fermentation for a crisp crust, brioche uses butter and eggs for softness, and naan uses yoghurt for the same. Focaccia does it all with oil.
Leftovers: splitting it for a panino is the Italian answer. Gone stale, warm it in the oven, or slice it thin and crisp it into focaccia secca for dipping in pesto.

Tips

Eighty per cent hydration is the definition of this bread. 400ml of water to 500g of flour. Too sticky to handle is the correct state, and that water becomes the steam that opens the big holes inside. The moment you add flour to make it manageable, you have made ordinary bread.
Fold instead of kneading. A dough this wet cannot be kneaded. Four folds at half-hour intervals let the flour hydrate and the gluten line itself up in between. Time does the work that force would (dough and gluten, soaking).
Wet your hands, don't flour them. Flour stiffens the dough by exactly as much as you use, and oil stops the folds sealing to each other. Water is the answer.
Keep the salt off the yeast. In direct contact, osmotic pressure knocks the yeast back. It goes in after the 20-minute autolyse (salt and seasoning, fermentation basics).
The overnight fridge prove is most of the flavour. Twelve to eighteen hours cold gives the yeast time to produce a far wider range of aroma compounds. If you have the time, take it.
Push the dimples all the way to the bottom. A gentle press is not enough. Your fingers have to reach the tin so the oil pools there and fries the bread from inside its own surface as it bakes. Half-hearted dimples give you a thick plain loaf.
Salamoia — oil shaken with water. Pouring an emulsion of olive oil and water (sometimes brine) over the top is the Italian method. Oil alone runs off; with water in it, it stays on the surface and the water boils away in the oven, leaving the top crisp (emulsions and pan sauces).
Do not economise on the oil. It goes in the tin and on the top. The bread earns its name from the oil. A mild extra virgin is easiest (cooking oils, olive oil).
The salt has to be coarse. Fine salt dissolves into the surface and only tastes salty. Crystals crunching between the teeth are half of what a focaccia is.
Fresh rosemary, not dried. Strip the leaves off the sprig with your fingers. Dried burns easily, so add it in the last five minutes if that is what you have (fresh herbs).
As hot an oven as you have. 230°C. Cooler, the oil soaks in without the surface ever setting and the bread is greasy. In a weak oven, use a low shelf so the base cooks first (what your oven is doing).
Out of the tin the moment it is baked. Left in, steam is trapped underneath and undoes the crisp base you just made. It takes seconds and the difference is large.
It is a same-day bread. By the next day it is noticeably worse. Wrap and freeze the extra, and five minutes at 200°C brings it most of the way back. The microwave makes it rubbery (freezing and thawing, reviving leftovers).