FOCACCIA

Day 1

  • In a bowl, mix together water, yeast, honey, sea salt and olive oil 

  • Add in the bread flour and mix until combined. Then cover it and let rest for 10 minutes at room temp

  • After 10 minutes, you will do a little stretch + fold. Apparently this helps develop the gluten in the dough which will help with the structure of the bread.

  • Wet your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to you and grab a handful of dough from the 12 o’clock position, pull it up slightly and then back down to the 6 o’clock position. Repeat this action on all sides of the dough until it feels like you’ve created a bit of tension and you can’t stretch the dough up and over anymore…it should have tightened up into a rough ball. 

  • Let rest for 10 minutes and then repeat the stretch + fold action one more time.

  • After the second set of stretch and folds, wet your hands, gather your dough and place it seam side down into bowl so the top is quite smooth to prevent the air bubbles from escaping 

Right around here is when I realized something was wrong. My dough was not forming into a tense dough ball that I could pick up. It was like slime.

But we persevere.

So if your dough is not forming, probably just add some more flour until it feels right. Should form into a tense enough consistency that you can pick it up and transfer it seam side down to a new bowl.

  • Top the dough with a good drizzle of olive oil and rub it over the dough to make sure the entire top surface has been covered. Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge and let it rest in there for 12 - 48 hours.

WHAT YOU NEED:

  • 500g white bread flour

  • 420ml water (slightly warm)

  • 1 tsp instant yeast

  • 1 tsp honey

  • 1 tbsp olive oil 

  • 2 tsp sea salt

  • Flaky sea salt

  • Olives + rosemary (topping)


Day 2

  • Line a 9x13 baking tray with teensy bit olive oil, and then place parchment paper on top. Then put some more olive oil everywhere.

  • Put the dough in the pan, and fold it into thirds and turn and flip so the seams are down and the smooth side is up.

  • Use another tray to cover the dough and let rest for 2-4 hours. 

  • After dough is floopy and jiggly in the pan, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

  • Lather your dough and your hands up with olive oil and dimple the dough. Gently. 

  • Top with flaky salt, olives and rosemary. 

    I topped mine with some of my rosemary orange zest leftover sifted mixture from my Old Fashioned recipe

  • Bake for 18-22 mins or until golden brown on top, could be 20-30 mins. Who knows. I think mine ended up being 25 mins

  • Let cool for few mins the transfer to cooling rack so the bottom doesn’t get all soggy.