Prep Time: 24-30 hours
Bake time: 35 - 50 minutes†
† your mileage may (and probably will) vary but these are the extremes
- 3.25 cups strong bread flour
- 1 table spoon salt (15g)
- 1 tea spoon dry yeast (4g)
- 1.5 cups warm water (325g)⌘
- 2 table spoos fresh chopped rosemary‡
- 3 table spoons olive oil (bottom of the pan)
- 1-2 table spoons olive oil (for the top of the dough)
- 1 table spoon sugar (order of preference: dark, demerara, cane, white, caster)
‡ Edinburgh is littered with rosemary plants, find your nearest and steal some.
⌘ for quick warm water, a half cup of boiled water to every cup of cold water works well for me
- Combine the flour, salt, rosemary in a bowl
- add sugar and warm water to a jug
- add the yeast to the sugar water and make sure it blooms so you know it's alive. If it doesn, tie to go to the shops.
- add the sugar water yeast to the bowl
- combine everything so it clumps in one big wet mass. If its watery, add flour, if there is still dry flour, add a touch more water.
- Soak a tea towel with warm water and cover the bowl with it. Leave the bowl for 24 hours.
- Get a deep tray / oven dish / roasting tin. Coat the bottom and side with oil
- You can put down some baing paper first and leave some excess at the side like wings to make it easier to remove focaccia after baking.
- Stretch your dough out to fit the pan and let it rise for 1-2hours (even longer if you want tall focaccia)
- Pop any air bubbles with your finger, which also creates dimples for oil. Don't be shy. Lift your dough up if you see air trapped underneath too!
- Bake at 220ºC for ~35-50 minutes.*
- Let cool a little befor cutting. Cut the edges to get a classic focaccia shape and give the trimmings to the kids and tell them they're breadsticks.
* Lets not pretend your oven is the same as mine. first few times you'll just need to baby sit it for the final 20 minutes
Lets cut to the chase.
- Your oven will be different
- the size of your oven dishes will be different
- your tastes will be different.
- your climate will be different
You're going to make this a half-dozen times before you land on something that you really enjoy. Try and learn from each attampt, and here's some suggestions on what to pay attention to.
if you like focaccia chewy, make sure it is nice and wet. You can probably get away with the dough being wetter than you think
Add more sugar, add darker sugar. Experiment until you get a crust you like and remember your measures. Add a baking tray with water to the oven as it gets to temperateure. Increase in humidity helps with rise and crust.
The pans you have in your home will differ from my own. I have come to realise that cooks give recipes for the pans they own. Funnily enough, we all own different stuff.
If you have some duplicate pans, I'd recommend making more than you need of the recipe and experiment with spreading out the dough thinner or thicker. You can also experiment with how long you leave the dough to rest in the pan after stretching.
The measures of the recipe scale linearly in my experience. Try halving / doubling the amounts. In general there is greater tolerance to error the more you make.
Maybe you live in Inverness and it's winter, maybe you're in Plymouth in the middle of summer. This can affect the resting times for the dough. How it will effect, I don't know but maybe leave it longer if it's dark and cold and less if it's hot. I'm not a scientist, geez.