Fresh focaccia bread – easy and home made

A deliciously easy and tasty recipe, this fresh focaccia bread is fantastic to make at home. It takes very little effort, with most of the time spent just letting the dough rest and develop its flavours and fantastic crust.

It’s so easy to bring together, especially if you have a Danish dough whisk. You can find a little bit about them in an earlier post featuring five handy kitchen items to make life better.

The right flour makes decent bread great

I used to use Australian grown and milled flour to make bread and was never really satisfied with the results. The dough was hard to get to the right consistency – I guess you’d call it nice and springy so it stretched without breaking, and the bread itself lacked good flavour and texture.

That changed a couple of years ago when I was shopping at my local market and bought some Italian bread flour to try out.

Milled and made in Naples, Caputo changed my baking game. As the first thing you see on its website, the company boasts its Napoli roots and operations since 1924.

My bread dough suddenly resembled and felt like what I’d imagined dough to be for many years.

As much as I strive to support Australian grown and produced food items, I’m sad to say our flour just doesn’t meet the standard for bread and so I now buy Caputo flour for all my baking needs. Its Nuvola pizza flour makes gorgeous Napoli-style crusts, the pasticceria cake and pastry flour creates gorgeously light baked sweet treats, and I’ve made the softest, spongiest gnocchi and perfect pasta with its … you guessed it … pasta fresca e gnocchi flour.

If you can source Caputo flour, I’d highly recommend trying it out for your next baking adventure.

This fresh focaccia is a no-knead recipe

There’s no kneading involved with this dough, but you do need to understand the stretch and fold method to form the dough. This method is used when a wetter (higher hydration) dough is made.

It’s easy to do by:

• oiling or wetting your hands and, while still in the bowl, take hold of a corner and lift it so it stretches upwards
• fold that stretched dough over the ball
• turn the bowl 1/4 around
• take another corner of dough and lift it so it stretches, then fold that again
• repeat this action twice, so you’ve folded four times from each corner (yes, I know, the dough will probably be round, but use your imagination here).

In between the stretching and folding, let the dough rest for 30 minutes. You do this four times in total. It’s not hard work, the time is just the resting. Read a book. Turn on the TV. Do some work …

And then let it rest a longer time. Hours. Overnight or all day if you start the dough in the morning.

This is what it looks like when it’s ready to be turned into the prepared pan.

This bowl is a bit flat in the middle, because it stuck to the wrap covering the bowl and lost some bubbles when it was gently pulled away.

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Once it’s been turned into the pan and is ready to bake, use oiled fingers and press deep holes in the bread – not all the way through, just so the divets catch the oil and salt or herbs you sprinkle on top.

Now it’s ready for the oven.

This recipe is adapted from one by Alessandro Sogno I discovered while a subscriber to the Gronda app.

Fresh focaccia bread – easy home made goodness

Recipe by Marti CuattCourse: Breakfast, DinnerCuisine: Italian

Servings

16

slices

Prep time: prepare, stretch, rest. Plus 6+ hours rise

1

hour 

30

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Just five ingredients, some patience and a gentle touch will bring this gorgeous focaccia bread to your table. Open crumb, crunchy crust, just perfect. Note, all measurements are in metric.

You will need

• 450 grams (3 cups) bread flour

• 7 grams (1 slightly heaped tsp) instant dried yeast or 17grams fresh yeast

• 5 grams (1 teaspoon) white sugar

• 6 grams (1.25 teaspoons) fine sea salt

• 10 grams (1/2 tablespoon) olive oil – you can use a little less if you like

• 400 ml (1.5 cups) luke warm water, plus extra if needed

Here’s what to do

• In a small jug or bowl, whisk together the sugar, yeast and water until combined. Set aside for five minutes until it starts to get bubbly.
• Take a large bowl and add the flour. Pour in the bubbly water/sugar/yeast mixture. Use a dough hook or spatula and gently mix together. Add extra, just a tablespoon at a time if needed to make a nice wet, but still workable dough. Once the dough comes together, stop mixing.
• Add the oil and mix through, then sprinkle the salt over and mix through. Don’t overmix the dough.
• Cover with a damp tea towel or cling film and let the dough rest for 20 minutes, then using lightly oiled hands, stretch and fold the dough from four corners. (See note below)
• Cover and set aside for 30 minutes, then using lightly oiled hands, stretch and fold the dough from the four corners again. (See note below)
• Rest another 30 minutes and then lift and fold the four corners one last time.
• The overnight proofing method
• Cover and place in the fridge for 10-12 hours.
• Remove from the fridge and sit for an hour to bring back to temperature, then transfer it into an oiled tray. Use lightly oiled hands to push and stretch the dough as much as you can across the tray and leave to rise a further 1-2 hours.
• The same-day proofing method
• Cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap/reusable silicon cover and place in a draft-free and not too warm spot for a minimum of 4 hours, but 6-8 hours is better.
• After that time, gently turn out into a tray that’s been oiled and lined with baking parchment.
• As above, use lightly oiled hands to push and stretch the dough as much as you can across the tray and leave to rise a further 1-2 hours.
• Continue on with the rest of the baking process
• When ready to bake, drizzle some good quality olive oil on top, then poke deep dents into the dough using your fingertips.
• Preheat the oven to 230C.
• Place in the oven and bake 10 minutes.
• Turn the oven down to 215C and bake a further 10-15 minutes until golden brown on top and hollow sounding when the bottom is knocked.

Tips and tricks

• Bread flour has a high protein content that makes it stronger, resulting in a better texture. Try to find flour that has 12+ grams protein per 100 grams.
• Flour – country of origin. I use Italian flour. See the paragraph above the recipe about Caputo flour and why I have chosen this as my preferred kitchen flour, not just for bread, but for all my baking.
• Yeast: I use Lowan Wholefoods Instant dried yeast or occasionally fresh yeast. Active dried yeast works too, but increase the amount you use by a gram or two.
• The ingredient measurements don’t need to be exact to the last gram, so don’t panic if you don’t have a kitchen scale. Experiment a little and you’ll soon learn what works for you.
• Once you get the hang of the dough, try experimenting! Mix up your flours, such as swapping 75-100 grams bread flour with wholemeal flour.
• White sugar in Australia is what Americans would call granulated sugar.
• If you want, add toppings, such as a sprinkling of sesame seeds, sea salt flakes, chopped pitted olives or chopped fresh herbs, like fresh rosemary.