focaccia bread;
Are you still having trouble finding yeast at your grocery store? You’ll need yeast for this focaccia bread recipe, but it’s a cinch to make. Our grocery stores have been a little better stocked these days, which I’m grateful for. We still are careful to wear masks and limit our trips, but at least the baking aisle has been mostly resupplied!
I’ve been keeping an eye out for yeast, but luckily we visited my partner’s family a few weeks back. His mother offered to give us some of the two pounds of yeast she bought. Two pounds! Which is a lot of yeast, but it was the only size she could order because everyone has been bread crazy in quarantine.
But I was so grateful that my mother-in-law shared her yeast! That meant that I got to try out making focaccia at home. It is a surprisingly easy recipe, so we will definitely make this again. The key is definitely the flaky salt. I recommend investing in Maldon flaked salt if you like baking fresh bread (or love salted caramel). It’s got an extra crunch and makes your bakes look fancy even if you can get the saltiness from table or sea salt.
For the focaccia bread, I’d love to play with more flavors — roasted garlic anyone? Sounds amazing. I sprinkled rosemary on the top of this loaf, but next time I would work some into the dough. Sprinkling it on top meant that a lot of the rosemary just fell off ^-^”. It still had flavor, but it definitely could have more.
You definitely need the salt too! I didn’t realize how much I associate saltiness with focaccia until I made this recipe myself! I definitely recommend flaky salt, maldon salt. If you don’t have big flaky salt, then the next best option is sea salt. You can use table salt if you don’t have either alternative, but it would be my last resort. table salt gets too concentrated and easy to over-salt. Plus there’s the satisfaction of the crunchier big flakes which I love. The focaccia is so simple that the salt really makes the flavor pop.
How do you eat your focaccia? Not gonna lie, one of my favorite ways to eat it is just with a really good, high quality olive oil. We still had fancy olive oil from our New Zealand honeymoon and this bread was good enough to break it out. I have such a mental block about using up the last of specialty items, especially when I can’t get more!
It happens a lot with specialty items, gifts, or food from travel. But I’m trying to work on actually using them and savoring them. This recipe was the perfect excuse to use up the last of this rich and buttery olive oil. Because bread in olive oil is so simple, I could really appreciate the flavor of the oil itself.
Let me know if you make this recipe! It does make a large portion, enough that we had to go pretty aggressively to eat it up, but it was delicious and so worth it. This recipe is also perfect as a thin sliced bread for sandwiches. I also ate some with soup, specifically tomato soup which was also delicious. Because bread is such a staple ingredient, I’m sure you could find a lot of uses for it! Grilled cheese for one, or make a toasty pizza on it–it’d probably taste a lot like sicilian style pizza! Let me know your favorite ways to eat it in the comments!
Love fresh bread? Check out some of these other recipes!
- Looking for a yeasty dough a little different than bread? Check out these Pretzel Bites, a perfect appetizer or snack.
- If you are still having trouble acquiring yeast, check out my Quarantine Bagel recipe, which requires no yeast.
- Not a fan of waiting for dough to rise? Make these quick Garlic Monkey Bread bites with pre-made biscuit dough.
foccacia bread;
Ingredients
- 2½ cups water lukewarm, for yeast
- 2¼ tsp yeast (1 packet)
- 2 tsp honey
- 5 cups flour 1 Tbsp. salt
- 6 Tbsp olive oil plus additional for coating hands
- 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- In a measuring cup measure out 2½ c. lukewarm water and honey. Add yeast and allow to bloom approx 5 minutes.
- Add liquid to a large bowl. Add 5 cups flour and 1 Tbsp salt and mix with rubber spatula until the dough is cohesive and no dryness remains.
- Oil a large bowl with 4 Tbsp olive oil. You’ll want a bowl large enough to handle the rising. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight until doubled in size.
- Using the Tbsp of butter, generously grease a 9" x 13" baking pan (best for sandwiches) or an 13” x 18" rimmed baking sheet (best for thin, snacking).
- Remove the dough from the fridge. Using a fork in each hand, gently fold the dough in half 3 times. Allow to rise 1½ – 4 hours uncovered in a warm, dry spot.
- Stretch the dough into the pan, then coat your hands in olive oil and dimple the focaccia all over with your fingers and drizzle with remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and bake 20-30 minutes until golden all over.
