Focaccia! *Imagine an Italian Nona saying that*
I have about 20 Italian vacations planned in my Pinterest. Unfortunately I never have time to go to Italy…and now that I have time, I am not supposed to leave my house…how rude! So to fake my dream vacation we are making focaccia and watching movies in Italy in hopes that if I drink enough vino I might almost think I am there…almost! This crispy bread takes a few hours to make but you don’t need to do that much work, basically just move it from one bowl to another every few hours, nothing too crazy! I mean we have time on our hands now, but we don’t want to be labouring away for 6 hours, I have netflix shows to watch!
Focaccia Bread!
Focaccia Bread
Yield: 1 skillet sized pan, or a 9” cake pan, or whatever you’ve got!
Once you get to the final rise you will need to Preheat your oven to 450*F
1 cup Warm Water (needs to be warm to awaken our yeast)
1 teaspoon honey, sugar, or maple syrup
1 teaspoon yeast, I used instant yeast, but use what you got, we’re in quarantine!
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried herbs (optional)
2 1/2 cups Flour
Topping:
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon Coarse Salt (if not just a sprinkle of regular salt should do the trick!)
Toppings such as: parmesan cheese, chopped garlic, sundried tomatoes, pepperoni, herbs, sliced onion, olives, pesto, really anything you want!
In the bowl of your mixer pour your warm water and honey, stir to combine.
Sprinkle your yeast on top of the warm water, then let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes or until foamy.
Now add your olive oil, salt, dried herbs and flour and combine using the dough hook on the mixer.
Using the mixer with dough hook continue to mix the dough for 10-15 minutes, or until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and sticks together around the hook in a ball. If you need to, you can finish kneading this by hand, but I didn’t because it came together in the bowl.
Place the dough ball into a greased bowl and cover it with a lid, saran wrap, or a tea towel and let sit at room temperature until doubled in size, mine took 1.5 hours.
Now grease your pan (I used a cast iron skillet) using about 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil, this is going to seem like a lot, but the olive oil is there to kind of fry the edges of your bread and make them crispy in the oven!
Place your dough ball into the greased pan and using your fingers spread it out to fill the pan.
Now cover your pan with a tea towel and let sit at room temperature for about 1 hour, until the dough rises up about 1/2"-1” (doubled). If you don’t want to eat this today, you can also pop your focaccia into the fridge instead of letting it rise and bake it off tomorrow or later in the day, just make sure you let it sit at room temperature until it’s risen after taking it out of the fridge.
Preheat your oven to 450*F while the dough is resting in it’s pan.
Using your fingers dimple the dough ALL over so it has lots of imprints, then drizzle it with olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and any of the toppings you want. This isn’t a pizza, so you want to be able to see some of the dough peeking through, but a nice smattering of garlic or sundried tomatoes or olives is delicious! You can also bake this just with the olive oil and salt.
Pop the pan into your hot oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown!
Now pour yourself some vino, turn on “Under the Tuscan Sun” and eat your focaccia while pretending your on vacation. Heaven!