This focaccia recipe has a lot of history in our house.
For years, it was the boys’ go-to school lunch. And it was a tricky one to make – Dan Lepard’s original recipe from The Handmade Loaf required that I change the hydration of my starter for it, work the oil into the dough in stages, give it multiple stretches and generally coddle it along. But every single time I made it, it was smashed. So I kept making it until Emilie’s much simpler all-sourdough recipe appeared in Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.
However, the one big advantage of the old recipe was that it was relatively quick to make. Because it used a little bakers yeast with the sourdough starter, it was usually ready to eat within a few hours, providing I’d remembered to prep the starter to a different hydration the night before.
Fast forward to 2020 pandemic baking.
On a whim, I thought I’d make this focaccia again, but I didn’t have any ripe starter (at any hydration). I also didn’t have any regular extra virgin olive oil. Hmm.
I rummaged through the pantry and found the weirdest assortment of flavoured oils you could imagine. Mango-infused olive oil anyone? No? What about Orange, Rosemary and Fennel?
Throwing caution to the wind, I pulled my tub of starter out of the fridge and dolloped cold, flat starter into the mixing bowl. Then I added the orange and fennel oil, and a little extra dried yeast. The end result was very good indeed – the starter masked the flavour of the bakers yeast (which none of us like very much) and the loaf was on the table in time for lunch. In hindsight, I’m not sure we’d have noticed the yeast flavour anyway over the citrus oil.
I’ve tried this a couple more times with pleasing results. The Lemon Myrtle oil version was particularly nice!
Here’s the recipe:
- 175g – 200g sourdough starter. Use whatever you have, cold from the fridge if necessary.
- 330g water
- 80g oil – again, use whatever you have.
- 500g bread/bakers flour
- ¾ teaspoon dried yeast
- 10g fine sea salt
- Extra oil, for drizzling
- Flaky salt for scattering on top
Note: I used 175g of flat starter for one batch and a 200g mix of flat and active starter for another. Both worked equally well.
1. In a large wide mixing bowl, mix together the starter, yeast, water and oil. Add the flour and salt. This is a very wet dough – just mix it all together well with a spatula. It will form a shaggy mass. Cover it with a wok lid or a shower cap and let it rest.
2. After an hour, come back and give the dough a few folds, leaving it in the bowl. I use my spatula for this, dragging up the side of the dough, stretching it up and then flopping it over the top. Then I rotate the bowl 90° and repeat, doing this four times in total for a complete rotation.
If you can remember, repeat the 4-step folds a couple more times over the next two hours. Let the dough rise until it’s seriously puffy (usually four hours in total). It’s worth mentioning that at this point, I haven’t put my hands into the dough yet.
3. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and scrape the dough onto it. Oil your hands and gently flatten the dough into a rectangle. You will probably need to get your fingers under the corners and give it a gentle pull to get it into shape. My pan was 40cm x 28cm.
4. Preheat the oven to 220C (425F) with fan. Drizzle oil over the dough and spread it with your fingers, then scatter over the flaky salt. Allow the dough to rest for a further 15 minutes or so while the oven heats up.
5. Dimple the top of the dough with your fingers, pushing all the way down to the bottom. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, until golden brown. I usually rotate the tray at the 20 minute mark. Transfer to a wire rack to cool (if you can – otherwise, scoff it warm).
. . . . .
I used the gorgeous Italian flour that our friend Steve sent us, and it resulted in the most magnificent open crumb…
Small Man was so happy to have this back on the menu that he ate HALF of the first loaf I made in a single sitting, which makes it a winner in my book. Not sure what he’ll make of the mango-infused oil version though. Trying that next! ♥
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
haha, way to go Celia!!!
Wonderful. The best of both worlds… the thing I love about yeasted focaccia was it could go from inspo to table in time for lunch… but the overnight sourdough version had great texture and flavour. Foccacia was my go-to bread product anyway, now even more do-able. However, I don’t have any weird flavoured oils… I’ll make some.
Dale, I was only trying to use up what I had!! I’ll go back to regular evoo as soon as possible! 🤣
Great post thank you. Coincidentally, I was watching a program on YouTube yesterday where an experiment was conducted between a fully fed starter and a two week old unfed starter straight out of the fridge.The result was surprising as although the unfed starter dough took much longer to prove, the resultant bread won on taste!
I have also been following the tip I saw on the King Arthur’s web page apropos quantities of starter and, so far, using the brilliant starter you so kindly sent me, has worked well. 5 grams starter and 25 grams each of flour and water.
Thank you once again for your posts which are always the highlight of my day. Keep safe.
I just received some lovely French bakers flour and will make this on the weekend with my resurrected starter (related to Pricilla). Thank you.
How funny Celia. I literally just bought a copy of The Handmade Loaf on iBooks the other day for 99c. What a bargain and a plethora of information. But will try your cheats version!
Celia, what I love about bread is, it is so forgiving. Not so long ago I was converting a commercial yeast bread into a sour dough recipe, I reduced the flour to take into consideration the flour in the starter but not the water. No biggie, once I realise what I done I just started adding flour. It turned out perfect. Another time, Maus fed my wheat starter with rye flour. Again, all was well with the end product. It is amazing you can do anything with it and it still tastes great. Love the idea of fresh bread for lunch. 🤣🤣
I’ve been using Emilie’s recipe with great success in my house recently. I have some rosemary and garlic infused oil that I use and it makes it smell and taste absolutely heavenly! Sometimes we turn it into a focaccia pizza with dollops of tomato paste and pesto, scatterings of capsicum and tomatoes and whatever ham/salami we have in the fridge, and the cheese added about 10 mins before baking is done. And have you seen the beautiful focaccia art that is Instagram-popular at the moment, decorating the top with bouquets of veges and herbs? It was invented by the Vineyard Baker, see her website and instagram feed for details.
Wonderful its amazing what you can do when you experiment and a good way to use things that have been sitting in the cupboard. I made a banana loaf the other day and I had to use some gram flour in it. It still tasted good
I’m glad I’m not the only person clearing the weird out of their cupboards! This looks great – and when there’s yeast available in the shops again I’ll try it (though The Management is very happy with Emilies recipe)
Hi Celia would this work for filled focaccia or easy focaccia for 23 year old, please?
Madge, neither of those use sourdough starter? But yes, do try using flavoured oils in the other recipes, they could produce interesting results! x
I worded that question badly Celia, soz, and thank you for your reply. What I meant to ask was could I put ham, dried figs etc. through the dough and when should I do it? My 14 year old grandson is very keen to try the filled focaccia.
Hi Madge, yes this should be fine – just add any fillings in at the very beginning! :)
Thank you Celia. x