There is a neighborhood lunch shop not far from where I live that serves up a pretty tasty deli sandwich which I treat myself to every now and then. And possibly my favorite part? It is always served on a warm and fairly thin miniature focaccia loaf.
And if they can do it, then I can do it! So I set out on a short run of experiments to figure out my personal focaccia loaf recipe. Can I eat the whole thing in one sitting if I tried? Yes, of course. But it also makes for a pretty awesome side for a dinner of four.
It also helped, perhaps coincidence or maybe even inspiration, than I stumbled across King Arthur’s cheesy focaccia recipe that they bake in a bread pan. Yes! That is the sizing I was looking for.
But their focaccia was a cheese focaccia and also started and finished the same day. I was looking for something a little different. No cheese for me please, at least not until I get my plain focaccia recipe down pat.
And while I appreciate the flexibility of being able to wake up and decide that I would like to eat some fresh bread later in the day, I really enjoy the added flavor, and fiddling with the dough, that comes from starting the day before you want to bake your loaf.
This is a pretty wet dough, as most focaccia recipes recommend. I ended up somewhere in between Claire Saffitz’s recipe, Joshua Weissman’s focaccia and the King Arthur recipe I already mentioned, to figure out my flour to water ratio. As well as my timing.
It is wet enough that immediately after mixing all of the ingredients together it is pretty close to being unworkable in the traditional sense of kneading. Which is one reason I like to get started the day before, to let time work its magic on developing the texture and flavor of the dough.
The dough is also wet enough that if you have not yet learned what a “stretch and fold” or “coil fold” knead is or why you would use it, today is your lucky day! Those are simply two kneading techniques that make it easier than you might have thought to work with such a bread dough with the consistency of a batter.
Real quickly, for a stretch and fold knead, simply grab one part of the dough, pull up and stretch it, and then fold it over the other side of the dough. Spin the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. And again. And again. That’s it.
For a coil fold, reach your hands into the bowl and under the dough, at 3 and 9 o’clock if we were looking at a clock, and touch your fingers under the dough and lift up until the two sides not supported by your hands release from the bowl. Layer them over each other, spin your bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Maybe once more if you really feel like it.
My personal preference is to mix the focaccia dough up the night before and to give it two stretch and fold turns, and then into an oiled bowl for a full night in the refrigerator.
If it has really gotten out of hand overnight, then I will give the dough one coil fold in the morning. But more likely I will wait until early afternoon, take the dough out so that I can have some fresh bread with dinner.
I will give it one full set of coil folds soon after taking the dough out of the refrigerator and then back into the bowl to develop even more bubbles. And then just because I can’t help myself I will do only one or two coil folds as I transfer the focaccia dough into the non-stick bread pan that I use for baking to ensure that I get a golden crispy crust on my personal sized focaccia loaf.
But if the urge to make and eat focaccia comes upon me quickly, this recipe can still work same day, just skip the refrigerator part and proceed straight from mixing the ingredients through all of the folds to develop the gluten and then on to oiling and baking!
Homemade Focaccia Recipe
Equipment
- 1 bread pan non-stick preferable
- 1 baking stone
Ingredients
- 150 g warm water
- 5 g olive oil
- 1/8 tsp active yeast
- 160 g bread flour
- 2 g salt
Reserved Olive Oil
- 2 tsp olive oil to oil bowl for overnight refrigerator rise
- 2 tsp olive oil to oil bread pan for baking focaccia
Instructions
- The day or night before baking combine all ingredients in a bowl in the order listed above and using hands or stiff spatula mix thoroughly, dough will be very wet and resemble a batter, cover and let rest
- After 30-45 minutes remove cover and use "stretch and fold" kneading technique to start developing the dough, cover and let rest
- After 30-45 minutes remove cover and use "stretch and fold" kneading technique to continue developing the dough and then place into a second bowl that has been generously oiled, cover and place in refrigerator overnight.
- About 3-4 hours before you want to eat warm bread straight out of the oven, reomve dough from the refrigerator and use a "coil fold" three or four times, cover and let rest
- After 60 minutes pour 2 teaspoons olive oil into bottom of non-stick bread loaf pan and spread around, perform one more set of coil folds on dough and transfer to oiled bread pan, cover and let rest
- After 60 minutes gently stretch and poke dough to try and cover bottom of bread pan, cover and let rest
- After 30 minutes, gently stretch and poke dough to finish covering bottom of bread pan, cover and let rest – preheat oven to 450
- After another 30-60 minutes place pan in pre-heated oven on top of baking stone, turn after baking 10 minutes
- Total baking time will be around 20 minutes but remove bread when dark golden brown all across the top and immediately remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack or oven burner grates
- Slice, dip into olive oil if desired and enjoy as a snack, sandwich or a side with dinner!
As usual, there are always caveats when trying to put together any kind of nutritional panel. While I could easily eat an entire recipe’s worth of this focaccia, the numbers were simply too scary, so I went with four servings. I also assumed that all of the oil used to grease both the bowl the dough rises in and the bread pan the bread bakes in would be absorbed into the final product, which is clearly not 100% true, but probably pretty close to be in the ball park.
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