Focaccia is a great bread for entertaining. We often serve it in small slices, accompanied by a good extra virgin olive oil and white balsamic vinegar for dipping.
A simple way to make focaccia is with the basic bread dough. Allow the dough to complete its first rise, then flatten it out and fit it into a parchment lined tray. The photos here show a focaccia made with a half batch of dough which produced a 20cm (8″) square of bread.
Allow the dough to rise for about half an hour, covered with greased clingfilm. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 250C (480F). When the dough has risen enough, drizzle a thin coating of olive oil over the top and sprinkle it with some good sea salt (we used Maldon flakes). It’s hard to tell from the photo below, but the dough had risen quite a bit – it was thicker and puffier than it was in the top photo.
Spread the oil and salt out a little, then push your fingertips into the dough, right to the bottom of the pan. This is what gives the bread its distinctive dimpled appearance.
Put the bread into the hot oven, lowering the temperature to 220C (430F) and bake for 20 – 25mins, rotating the bread once during the baking time. Viola! Smile graciously when people tell you how clever you are!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Ohh I remember this bread!! When Pete dropped it over last time, M&D were out but I just couldn’t resist and started to eat it straight out of the bag, off the end of the loaf without even bothering to get a knife! Haha.
Love the videos Celia!
One day I will make something :)
Kat
Boy talk about delicate fingers in the video…
When I make my version of Focaccia I cheat (a lot)
I go to my local supermarket get a bag of their fresh organic bread dough / pizza dough that has been cold temperature retarded. Stretch it out into a well oiled tray, cling film it, leave it in the car to rise for an hour or so. When it has tripled in size use a couple of fingers (rather than the whole 2 bunches in your video) to make lots of the little gopher holes all over the surface. Blitz up some fresh rosemary and garlic with olive oil liberally spread over the dough, bake it in the oven for about 12 minutes at what ever the flat out temperature is, when it is still hot quench with still more olive oil and add a liberal scattering of sea salt flakes (Maldon if you must!). Slice into 1 X4 inch sticks and watch it disappear.
Wow, that’s a lot of oil, Moo! I’ll bet it’s delicious, though when I’ve tried rosemary and garlic, I always end up with burnt garlic.
Kath, this is a yeast version – the one Pete dropped off to your house was a mixed yeast and sourdough one. This one is different, but equally as good in its own way, and much easier…
I’m going to have to take another exam – although I do blame the flour. I didn’t realise until I got home that my precious purchase was complet – wholemeal – and then and then – well – it was edible!
Oh dear. You’ll have to come back for another lesson.. :)
I did it!!! Batch 3 worked!! I ditched the organic yeast in a big brown paper bag and bought supermarket stuff – et voila! Husband very impressed. He thinks you could use it as a base for pissaladiere.
Hooray! That’s wonderful news! I think it would make a great base for pizzaladiere – we also use it as our standard pizza dough!
Oh Celia, every time I try to make bread it never works out.. I can’t get it right. Followed the recipe to a tee and the bread just never rises and it always doughy and dense with no air! Is it the yeast not activating, although it did double in size or could it be the oven temp isn’t high enough… I’m so disappointed, any words of advice would be very much appreciated!
ps hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day…
Keri L
Keri, have sent you an email! :) Celia
[…] been revisiting some of Celia’s older bread posts and found this great one with video of her doing focaccia. Have a look! Share this:EmailFacebookTwitterStumbleUponLike this:LikeOne blogger likes this […]