Recipe Focaccia Bread

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
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After several attempts using various recipes this is the most successful focaccia I've made, so far - I used several bits of different recipes in the end. The onion and thyme topping is optional - there are many other toppings you could use or simply sprinkle with olive oil and coarse sea salt. This recipe makes one bread using a tin approximately 15 x 20 cm.

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Ingredients
  • 300g strong white bread flour
  • 7g dried instant yeast
  • 7g salt
  • 30ml olive oil plus extra for the topping.
  • Finely sliced red onions
  • Dried thyme
  • Coarse sea salt

Method

  1. Mix together the flour yeast, salt and olive oil with just enough lukewarm water to form a sticky dough.
  2. Start kneading by slapping and throwing the dough repeatedly onto a lightly oiled surface, The dough will stick to your fingers and the surface to start with but after a few minutes it will become smoother and more elastic. Avoid adding more flour.
  3. Continue kneading the dough until it is silky smooth. If you don’t wish to knead by hand, you can use a dough hook and food mixer.
  4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled square or rectangular container pushing it to the edges to fit. I used a square pie dish.
  5. Cover and leave to rise until doubled.
  6. Turn the dough onto a lightly oiled surface and flatten out slightly. Fold two sides in, one over the other and then flatten out the dough to the approximate shape of your baking tin.
  7. Place the dough in the baking tin and using your knuckles, push the dough to the edges, attempting to keep it the same thickness throughout.
  8. Cover and leave to double in size. Twice during this process, you will need to push the dough back into shape, using your knuckles. You should end up with a dough with lots of dimples and bumps.
  9. Heat the oven to 220 C.
  10. Mix the onions with olive oil and spread over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle with thyme and coarsely ground sea salt.
  11. Bake for 8 minutes and then lower the heat to 170 C and bake for 15 mins or until golden brown.
  12. Sprinkle with more olive oil before serving.
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That looks very good indeed @morning glory - congratulations.

Slapped and kneaded? sounds like a lot of work ... but the end-product seems to justify the extra effort. I really can't be bothered kneading my bread dough any more - a really good slapping for a couple of minutes seems to be all that's needed to produce an excellent loaf. I might have a go at your recipe without any kneading, just to see if I can get away with it. And if it does work, I might try replacing 10% of the flour with sarrasin - see if I can make a focaccia saraceno (not that that exists as far as I know - it could be another first for the forum?).

Interesting also to note that you didn't use any bench flour after the first proving.

Good to see that you used a higher oven temp than previously, if only for 8 minutes or so.

Bread flour …? a strong white?
 
The version i was buying had onions like your first one, but also super thinnly sliced tomatoes and sprinkled with parmesan. It was so tasty and moist. Frankly a meal unto itself. I need to get my kitchen in order...it doesn't really have a good place to sling dough. When the kitchen was planned it was planned to have a rolling island for this kind of thing but somehow that has yet to happen.
 
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