My history with focaccia bread dates back to 2015 when I started to work in a kitchen. We made our own focaccia for both lunch and dinner service. On Saturday particularly I had to go to the basement where the production kitchen is and made 10 to 12 gastro trays of focaccia. At that time, due to the pressure of working against the clock, I didn’t appreciate focaccia bread much. For me, it was nothing more than a task I had to accomplish every single day.
Until my friend sent me a recipe for focaccia bread and I wondered how it would go with wild yeast instead of commercial yeast that I used to work with. It came out beyond amazing. The excitement of opening the fridge the next day and seeing your dough has grown so bubbly is why I am so hooked on sourdough bread making.
Why I like making sourdough focaccia
Making focaccia requires no shaping or scoring which makes it so much easier for beginners or whenever you feel lazy. There’s a saying in the sourdough world that if you overproof your dough, make it into focaccia instead.
The best part of making focaccia bread is it can be so much fun and with so many possibilities. From the simplest ones – just olive oil, salt and pepper to those with playful toppings like cheese, confit garlic, grilled capsicum, pesto, onion, tomato, rosemary, etc. You can add all the toppings you like and enjoy it as it is or you can make a simple focaccia and cut it in half lengthways and make a sandwich out of it.
Today I’m sharing my latest bake – cheesey focaccia with tomato, pickled jalapeno, red onion and olive.
before bake
After bake
Universal focaccia recipe
| weight | ingredient | baker’s percentage |
| 300g | baker’s flour/ plain flour (optional*: mix some wholemeal/rye flour) | 100% |
| 100g | starter | 33.3% |
| 240g | water | 80% |
| 6g | salt | 2% |
| 9g | olive oil | 3% |
| total 655g |
Workflow
| Day before/ Same day | Feed starter. |
| Day 1 | No autolyse required |
| 11:25 | Mix all ingredients together in a bowl* and use a scraper to combine and make a dough. (no need for the dough to be smooth at this stage) |
| 11:30 | Bulk ferment starts. Perform 2 sets of stretch and fold and 2 sets of coil fold (1 more set if needed) at 30-minute intervals. Leave the dough in room temp to continue first proof for another 2-3 hours. |
| 16:00 | Prepare a tray and lined with baking paper. Oil the baking paper with olive oil. Transfer the dough onto the oiled tray, and rub some oil on the dough to prevent sticky to the cling wrap. Wrap the tray or the dough* and move it into the fridge for cold proof. |
| Day 2 | |
| Take out the dough 2 hours before baking.* | |
| Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Prepare your favorite toppings. | |
| Rub some olive oil on the dough and use fingertips to gently press down the dough* (see video below) Add prepared toppings. Sprinkle salt, pepper and more olive oil. | |
| Bake at 220 degrees, 20-25 minutes or until it’s perfect to your eye. | |
| Cool down focaccia for at least 30 minutes. Slice and enjoy. |
Notes
* The flour selection in this recipe is a wide range. If you prefer your focaccia to be soft, go for plain flour or all-purpose flour. If you prefer some extent of chewiness, go for baker’s flour. You can even use a mix of different flour for this recipe.
* My favorite ratio is 2/3 of baker’s flour and 1/3 of wholemeal flour (or rye)
* This recipe is medium-high hydration (wetter dough), which means it can be made by hand mix. In fact, I usually hand-mix my focaccia dough. When mixing ingredients by hand, I put water(liquid) first in a bowl and followed by starter, oil (if the recipe requires it) and then dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar). As long as the dough comes all together, leave it and start bulk fermentation.
* Perform some folds to help gluten develop. (check here for how to perform folds)
* After the dough have increased about 50% transfer to fridge for cold proof. It’s crucial that you rub some oil on the dough before wraping the whole tray or at least to cover the entire dough (to prevent dough from drying out). If not, the cling wrap will stick to the dough and when you try removing the plastic, you may tear the dough and also deflate the dough.
* On day 2, there’s no specific timeframe saying when you have to bake it. As long as the dough is under cold-proof for at least 8 hours, it is good to go. I wouldn’t recommend leaving the dough for more than 24 hours in the fridge because of the high amount of starter in the dough. Feel free to adjust the quantity of sourdough starter to suit your schedule.
* The reason I take the dough out from the fridge and leave it at room temp for 2 hours is to get the dough temp up. When the dough is cold, the structure is tighter and if you try to press down and slightly stretch it to get the dough to the corner of the baking tray, it will shrink back.
* How to press the dough with fingertips to create little dents:
At the end
This focaccia recipe is a universal one. Play around with different flour and find out your favorite recipe. The dough can be done the day before and ready for lunch or dinner. Let your imagination go wild and have fun with it. You will fall in love with focaccia bread, guaranteed!
