I believe everybody knows what focaccia is right? It is that delicious flat oven-baked Italian bread, similar in style and texture to pizza dough that can be served as a snack, antipasto, appetizer or also as a bread, or simple at the end of the working day with your colleagues and friends enjoying an aperitif.
Ingredients:
- 250 g white bread flour
- 1 tsp flake salt
- 1 sachet dried yeast
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 200 ml cold water
- extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- fine salt
How to do it:
Blend the yeast into the water and add the olive oil. Place the flour and fine salt into a large bowl. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together and with your hand or a wooden spoon stir to form a dough then knead the dough in the bowl for five minutes. Tip the dough onto an work surface and continue kneading for five more minutes.
Line the baking sheet with baking paper and flatten the dough onto the baking sheet, pushing to the corners, then leave to rise for at least 5 hours. I put it to rise inside the oven, but with the oven turned off of course. Usually I do it after lunch and then for dinner my focaccia is ready to be cooked.
Before cooking it, use your fingers to poke deep dents all over the surface of the dough, which creates little pockets for the olive oil to pool, and also prevents your dough from rising too high while baking, drizzle the dough with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with flake salt, rosemary leaves and olives if you wish or dried tomatoes, then bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 250 degrees or until the dough is slightly golden.
When cooked, drizzle with a little more extra virgin olive oil and serve hot or warm.
It is crispy on the outside and fragrant inside and it is very light, you see all the bubbles from the dough 🙂
We served it with cold cuts, cheese, pickles and a good red wine of course.
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