Focaccia

If you’re looking for a super simple bread recipe, thats easy to make and just as easy to customise – why not give this focaccia a try.

If you haven’t tried a focaccia before, where have you been? It’s one of the simplest breads I’ve ever made, up there with white tin loaf. That’s mostly because it can be enjoyed quite plain or you can get creative with the flavours – the potential flavour combinations are endless.

By plain, I mean brushed with oil with a scattering of salt but I have kept it simple with olive oil, salt, green olives and thyme, which I like but you can pick and choose what works for you but I recommend keeping the olive oil and salt in the recipe as it plays quite a good roll in the flavour but that being said, make it work for you.

This bread is unique when it comes to the texture and mouthfeel, there isn’t a bread that very similar but if I had to name a bread that was closest to a focaccia, it would be a pizza base. It’s that close textured but also springy bread, I know you know what I mean.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

500g Strong bread flour.

8g Salt.

20g Fresh yeast.

30g White shortening.

15g Milk powder.

210ml Water.

80ml Olive oil.

 

Toppings:

Olive oil (as much or as little as needed).

100g Green olives.

Fresh thyme.

Salt (sea salt or alternative works best)

 

Method:

Before you get started on making the bread, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like starting by weighing up all of the ingredients, followed by grabbing all the equipment I may need, such as a stand mixer and a bench scraper.

To start on the recipe, grab your mixing bowl and place in the bread flour and salt then mix just until they are combined.

Then you can go ahead and add the fresh yeast, white shortening, milk powder, water and olive oil. If you’re using a stand mixer, mix for 2 minutes on a low speed, followed by 6-8 minutes on a medium-high speed (check the consistency of the dough at 6 minutes, if its smooth and clear, then you don’t need to add extra mixing time.

Once the dough has mixed and is formed, you can then go ahead process it immediately. Take a rolling and roll out the dough until its roughly 9 inches long, then transfer it onto a lined medium sized baking tray and spread out to almost reach the corners.

Cover the rolled out dough with some loosely fitting clingfilm and leave for up to an hour or until it has well proofed up.

Now is the perfect time to preheat your your oven to 200˚c/390˚ƒ.

Now that the dough has proofed, you can remove the clingfilm and brush generously with olive oil. Then you can indent the dough using your fingers, place the olives on top in whichever formation you’d like (I just placed my spread out), then you can also add the fresh herbs and salt.

Once you’ve done all of that, you can then place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until its consistently well coloured.

Allow the focaccia to cool down fully, then enjoy. You can use it as a side to your meal or as sandwich bread – whichever works best for you.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.