Focaccia with Smoked Salt and Rosemary
My most requested recipe, ever!
For all of my beautiful friends who’ve been asking me for this recipe for months, here it is! I’ve been trying to perfect this delightful, crunchy yet fluffy bread and now I’m ready to share all of my tips and tricks for the ultimate focaccia.
Unreal focaccia every time, let’s go!
A Labour of Love
This focaccia recipe takes a few hours to make, and it’s important to keep an eye on the dough through all of the stages. Take your time, and enjoy the process! If you’re not a hands-on kind of baker, Edd Kimber does a ridiculously good overnight focaccia that takes like 5 minutes to prepare, and is ready to bake the next day.
Knead to Know
We’ll be kneading our dough until it’s stretchy and smooth, and passes a test called the window-pane test. This is exactly what it sounds like - if you can stretch a small portion of the dough and it holds together in a translucent web, just like a windowpane, it’s ready to go! If the dough tears, the gluten hasn’t developed enough yet, and it needs more kneading.
Gluten development is what gives your bread structure. Not enough structure, and the dough won’t be able to capture the gas bubbles produced during fermentation - and that’s what gives us a light and fluffy interior.
If we over-work the dough, we’ll develop too much gluten and end up with a tough, dense loaf instead. That’s why it’s important to take your time with this step and pay attention to the dough, so that you can have perfect focaccia every time!
Keep it cool
There’s an option to cold-proof the dough and I highly, highly recommend that you do! It helps to develop some delish flavour, and can make the bread easier to handle at the dimpling stage (aka the most fun part of making focaccia). Hooray!
More Delish Recipe Ideas
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More Delish Recipe Ideas 〰️
Recipe Variations
You can top your focaccia with sooo many different delicious things!
I’m a huge fan of toasted seeds like sesame, sunflower or pepitas for a delightful crunch. Nigella seeds and poppyseeds are also super fragrant and a fun + tasty addition to your bread.
Traditional toppings like tomatoes and olives will always be delish! Personally I avoid soft herbs like parsley and basil because they burn in the oven, but you do you!
Focaccia with Smoked Salt and Rosemary
Ingredients
- 7g (1 x packet) dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon honey or brown sugar
- 350mL tepid water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 400g bread flour
- 100g spelt flour*
- 15g table salt
- 1-2 tablespoons smoked sea salt**
- 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary
- A lot of olive oil, for baking
- *I buy spelt flour from The Source Bulk Foods. If you can't source spelt flour, substitute with bread flour.
- **You can find flavoured salts at your local deli. Some supermarkets stock them now also!
Instructions
- In a large jug, combine the dry yeast, honey, and tepid water. Set aside until the yeast bubbles, 2-5 minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours and the salt.
- When the yeast is ready, add the olive oil to the yeast-water mixture and then pour it into the mixing bowl with the flour. Roughly combine to form a dough.
- If you are using a stand mixer, attach a dough hook and knead the dough for 5-8 minutes, until the dough no longer sticks to the bottom of the bowl and the dough passes the windowpane test.
- To make the dough by hand, prepare a large, clean surface and dust it with flour generously. Knead the dough by pushing the ball away from you with the heel of your palm, then rotating the dough ball 90 degrees. Repeat until the dough is smooth no longer sticky, and passes the windowpane test.
- To do a windowpane test, stretch out an edge of the dough into a flat square. The dough should stretch evenly into a connected pane that light can pass through. If the dough tears easily, the gluten hasn't been developed enough yet, and it's time to keep kneading.
- Transfer the dough into a greased bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Set aside until the dough has doubled in size, 1-2 hours.
- If it's nice and warm in my kitchen, your dough will rise faster than a colder environment. In my toasty lil kitchen, my dough takes about 45 minutes to double in size. Check in on your dough regularly to see where it's at!
- For a super crispy focaccia, you'll want to use a really, really good non-stick baking tin and a generous amount of olive oil to stop the focaccia from sticking to the tin. You can line the tin with baking paper if you like, but this means we lose that golden, crunchy base.
- Prepare your baking tin with a thin layer of olive oil that coats the entirety of the baking tin. Drizzle a little oil over the top of the dough, spreading it over with your hands. Use a spatula or wet hands to carefully release the dough from the sides of the bowl.
- Invert the bowl over the baking tin, and let the dough release from the bottom of the bowl by itself. After a minute or two it should delicately plop out.
- Give the tin a little shuffle back and forth so that oil coats the dough surface. Gently, stretch the dough out so that it roughly fits the size of the baking tin. Do this by pulling the dough from the centre out, rather than pushing or stretching the dough to the edges. You can use gravity to help you out by just holding up one edge of the dough and letting it stretch out slowly.
- Place the dough into the fridge to proof for 30 minutes. At this point, check to see if the dough is proofed by gently pressing a finger onto the dough. If the dough is proofed and ready to go, it will spring back slowly. If the dough springs back quickly, it is under-proofed, so leave it in a the fridge a little longer. If the dough stays indented and doesn't spring back, it is over-proofed. You can still bake it and it will still be tasty!
- When your dough is ready, pull it out of the fridge and let it come back to room temperature.
- Preheat your oven to 210C (190C fan-forced).
- Strip the rosemary leaves from the stem, and pop them into a small bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, then rub the oil into the leaves. This will help prevent the leaves from burning.
- Make sure there is an even coating of olive oil around the sides of the dough so that it doesn't stick to the pan.
- Add an extra drizzle of oil over the top of the dough, then sprinkle with smoked salt and rosemary.
- Now for the fun part! Use your fingers to dimple the dough from one end to the other.
- Pop your focaccia in the oven to bake until it is golden and delish, 30-35 minutes.
- Once the focaccia has been baked, give the tin a few minutes to cool down before you try to remove the bread. Make sure you protect your non-stick pan by only using plastic utensils to remove the focaccia. Metal utensils can scratch the non-stick coating, and we don't want that!
- Enjoy your focaccia!
