By now you should know that I absolutely love making bread! It’s almost like magic in real life. And one of my favourite bread is the focaccia. There’s nothing like its amazing sponginess, the intense taste of olive oil and its versatility. I’ve made this focaccia a ton of times by now and every single time it disappears from the table within minutes. It’s just too good.
Alternatively, you can put on top are onions cut nice and thin, olives, cherry tomatoes, ham, prosciutto, pesto, etc. Of course, herbs are a must for the focaccia and you can choose your favourite <3. This time I cut the focaccia in squares as an appetizer (everyone LOVES it!) but you can also use it as sandwich bread with some prosciutto and cheese and it will be your favourite sandwich ever, I promise. Another thing I love to do is to cut it in strips. They’re perfect for dipping into olive oil and balsamic vinegar or other sauces.
A new perfume maybe?
There are two things that I love about making bread. The first is the way it rises with the yeast; I’ve always thought that it’s like magic before my eyes. The second thing is the smell that comes out of the oven! It weakens the knees of the strongest people haha. Since this focaccia has lots of olive oil, the smell as it cooks is just fantastic. You can really smell all the ingredients. If you want to use your sourdough starter to make this focaccia, check out my sourdough focaccia recipe. Also, you can go ahead and see all my focaccia recipes.
Freezing Focaccia
I love how golden and crunchy it is on the top. Inside, it’s soft and has an intense in olive oil flavour. If I could I would do a batch of focaccia every day, it’s just my favourite. If you like, you can make half a recipe or also freeze some. You cut the bit that you’re using at the moment and cut up the rest and freeze it. When you want to use it you can just place it in the oven until it’s toasty again.
Ingredients
- 780 g all purpose flour
- 2 tsp fine salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 13 g instant yeast
- 440 ml lukewarm water (you can also weight it)
- 120 ml extra virgin olive oil (you can also weight it) + more to proof and bake
- 4 sprigs rosemary, only leaves and chopped + a few tips to decorate
- 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt to decorate
Instructions
- Put the flour, fine salt, sugar, yeast, water and oil in a bowl for a stand or handheld mixer. If you don’t have one, a large bowl will do.
- Mix everything roughly using the hook attachment and then knead on medium speed for 7min. If you don’t have a mixer, mix with a spatula until it doesn’t help anymore, finish mixing with your hands and kneading for 15min.
- Put a bit of olive oil on a clean bowl and let the dough rest inside covered with a kitchen cloth for an hour or until it doubles in size.
- Drizzle olive oil on the base of the baking sheet and spread the dough on top. Cover again and let it rest for 1 hour again or until it doubles in size.
- Make dimples on the dough by gently pressing with your fingers.
- Drizzle olive oil on top (on the video you’ll see I did it after adding the rosemary but it’s best if you do it before) and then scatter the rosemary and coarse sea salt.
- Take to a preheated oven at 230C for 10min or until nicely golden on top.