Focaccia Bread

This wonderfully soft, traditional Italian flatbread is very simple to make – the hardest part is waiting for it to rise! We recommend preparing the dough in the morning and then come dinner time, pop it in the oven and serve warm with your dish. 

Serves 4 - 6

2 ½ cups Girolomoni organic '00' flour
1 1/3 cups warm water
4 tsp Sabato fresh yeast, defrosted (or 2 ½ tsp dried)
2 tsp sugar (brown, white or caster)
3 tsp Sal de Añana salt flakes
½ cup Pons traditional extra virgin olive oil, plus drizzling
Optional: fresh or dried rosemary, onion slices, pitted olives.

Put sugar in a medium sized bowl and add the warm water, give a gentle stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the yeast, note that it is rather sticky, rough quantity is fine. Leave the yeast for 20 minutes or until the top is foamy (this is proving the yeast).

While the yeast is proving, take a large bowl, add the flour and roughly half of the salt. Once the yeast is ready, pour it into the large bowl with the flour, add in 1/3 of the olive oil and stir to combine. If the dough is too wet, add a little flour, if it’s too dry, add a little bit of warm water. Note: Focaccia dough is wetter than standard bread.

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil around the edges of the bowl to stop the dough from sticking to the sides and cover with a damp tea towel. Leave the covered bowl in a warm place for at least 2 hours.

Once the dough is ready, oil one hand, keeping the other clean – the oil will prevent the dough from sticking to you. Pour the dough onto an oiled oven tray and spread gently into desired shape. Leave the dough for the second rise, roughly 20 mins. You should see bubbles forming on the top.

Top as desired, pushing the toppings into the dough so prevent them from burning and make some holes with your fingertips. Sprinkle over the remaining salt and pour over olive oil, it should pool in the holes.

Bake at 180° for 30 minutes, checking halfway through, if the oil has disappeared and the bread looks dry, pour some more oil over.

You will know the bread is ready once it’s golden on top and you can hear it when you tap the top.

Drizzle over more olive oil and serve warm.