Overnight, Refrigerator Focaccia = The Best Focaccia Bread Recipe
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Cold, refrigerated dough is the secret to making delicious focaccia! Allowing the dough to rest 18 to 48 hours in the fridge will yield extra-pillowy and airy focaccia, though if you are pressed for time, you can make this start-to-finish in 3 hours. This 4-ingredient recipe requires only 5 minutes of hands-on time. Video guidance below!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review:
“Love this recipe! I’ve made this so many times that I’ve lost count. Super simple and delicious. My family loves it. Whenever someone asks me for a focaccia recipe, I always show them this one. This recipe is awesome. Thank you for sharing!” — Lucy
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: focaccia is the bread recipe for beginners. Why? Because:
- The no-knead, 4-ingredient dough takes 5 minutes to mix together.
- It requires no special equipment, no tricky shaping technique, and no scoring.
- If you have a 9×13-inch baking pan and your fingertips (for dimpling), you’re good to go.
- It emerges soft and pillowy, olive oil-crusted, golden all around, and it’s completely irresistible.
In sum, it’s hard to beat focaccia (pronounced foh-kah-chuh) in the effort-to-reward category. If you are intimidated by bread baking, this is the recipe I suggest making first, both for its simplicity and flavor. After all, this focaccia bread recipe is adapted from my mother’s simple peasant bread recipe, a recipe that has removed the fear of the bread baking process for many.
For the past few months, I’ve been making the focaccia bread recipe from my cookbook Bread Toast Crumbs, but changing the method: using more yeast, using less yeast, doing longer, slower rises at room temperature, doing longer, slower rises in the refrigerator. Find the results below.
This post is organized as follows:
- What Makes The Best Focaccia
- Four Tips for Success
- How This Focaccia Recipe Differs from Others
- Focaccia Bread Ingredients
- How to Make Focaccia, Step by Step
- Adding Rosemary, Herbs and Other Toppings to your Focaccia Dough
- How to Make a Focaccia Bread Art
- Tomato Focaccia
- How to Make a Focaccia Bread Sandwich
- Can I Skip the Overnight Rise?
PS: Once you master this simple focaccia, try your hand at this simple sourdough bread recipe, another recipe that requires minimal effort but yields spectacular results.
What Makes The Best Focaccia?
I’ll spare you all the details of the various experiments and skip straight to what I’ve found creates the best focaccia, one that emerges golden all around, looking like a brain, its surface woven with a winding labyrinth of deep crevices: high-hydration, refrigerated dough.
This is nothing novel—many bakers extol the virtues of the cold fermentation process—and it came as no surprise to me either: it was, after all, past-prime Jim Lahey refrigerated dough that showed me how easy focaccia could be: place cold, several-days-old pizza dough in a well-oiled pan, let it rise for several hours or until it doubles, drizzle with more oil, dimple with your fingers, sprinkle with sea salt, then bake until done.
Employing a refrigerator rise requires more time because the cold environment slows everything down initially, and during the second rise, the cold dough takes time to warm to room temperature. The overall effort, however, is very hands-off, and the result — a light, airy, pillowy dough — is well worth it.
As important as refrigerating the dough is using a high hydration dough, meaning a dough with a high proportion of water relative to the flour. The high proportion of water will create a dough with beautiful air pockets throughout. (Incidentally, this is the secret to making excellent pizza dough as well as light, airy sourdough sandwich bread.)
How This Focaccia Recipe Differs from Others
There are lots of focaccia bread recipes out there, so why make this one? This one differs from many of the recipes out there in two ways:
- The long, cold, refrigerator rise.
- The absence of sugar or honey or any sort of sweetener.
Why isn’t there any sweetener in this recipe? Simply stated, a sweetener is just not needed — the yeast, contrary to popular belief, does not need sugar to activate or thrive. Sugar will speed things up, but when you’re employing a long, slow rise, speed is not the name of the game.
Moreover, and this is getting a little scientific, but during the long, cold fermentation: enzymes in both the flour and the yeast will break down the starches in the flour into simple sugars, which will contribute both to flavor and to browning, again rendering sugar unnecessary. Cool, right?
Four Tips for Success
- Allowing the dough to rest 18 to 24 hours in the fridge yields the best results. (You can leave the dough in the fridge for as long as 72 hours.)
- A buttered or parchment-lined pan in addition to the olive oil will prevent sticking. When I use Pyrex or other glass pans, butter plus oil is essential to prevent sticking. When I use my 9×13-inch USA Pan, I can get away with using olive oil alone.
- Count on 2 to 4 hours for the second rise. This will depend on the temperature of your kitchen and the time of year.
- After the second rise, dimple the dough, then immediately stick the pans in the oven — this has been a critical difference for me in terms of keeping those desirable crevices. If you dimple and let the dough rise again even for 20 minutes before popping the pan in the oven, the crevices begin to dissolve.
Ingredients
- Flour: bread flour or all-purpose flour will work equally well here. If you live in a humid environment or abroad, I suggest trying to get your hands on bread flour. King Arthur Flour is my preference.
- Yeast: SAF Instant Yeast is my preference, but active dry yeast works just as well. See recipe box for instructions on how to use active-dry yeast in place of instant.
- Salt: I say this all the time, but a big part of making a good loaf of bread comes down simply to using the right amount of salt given the amount of flour you are using by weight. It’s like anything: bread has to be well seasoned. At a minimum, use 10 grams (2 teaspoons) of salt for every 500 grams (4 cups) of flour. I highly recommend investing in some good, flaky sea salt for sprinkling on top of the focaccia dough — it tastes better than the more finely ground varieties of salt. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt for the dough, but any salt you have on hand will work just fine for the dough.
- Water: There is a lot of water in this dough — it’s 88% hydration — and all of that water helps produce a light, airy, pillowy dough.
- Olive oil: Olive oil both in the bottom of the pan and on top of the dough is essential for encouraging nice browning, flavor, and that quintessential oiliness we all love about focaccia.
- Rosemary or other seasonings: Rosemary is a classic focaccia topping, and you can either sprinkle it over the dough before baking or you can chop it up and add it to the dough. Many people love sun-dried tomatoes and olives in their focaccia. See below for how to incorporate these other ingredients into your focaccia dough.
How to Make Focaccia Bread, Step by Step
Gather your ingredients: 4 cups (512 g) flour, 2 teaspoons (10 g) salt, 2 teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast (SAF is my preference), 2 cups (455 g) water:
Whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast first:
Add the water:
Use a spatula to stir the two together.
Slick the dough with olive oil:
Slick the surface of the dough with olive oil; then cover the bowl. You all have one of these, right? Stick the bowl in the fridge immediately; leave it there to rise for 12 to 18 hours (or longer—I’ve left it there for as long as three days). NOTE: It is important the dough really be slicked with olive oil especially if you are using a cloth bowl cover or tea towel as opposed to plastic wrap or the lid pictured in the photo below this one. If you are using a tea towel, consider securing it with a rubber band to make a more airtight cover. If you do not slick the dough with enough oil, you risk the dough drying out and forming a crust over the top layer.
Another option: the lid that comes with the 4-Qt Pyrex bowl. This is handy for fridge storage because you can stack things on top of it.
Remove from fridge, and remove the cover:
Deflate the dough and transfer to a prepared pan. I love this 9×13-inch USA pan. If you don’t have one you can use two 8- or 9-inch pie plates or something similar. If you are using glass baking dishes be sure to grease the dishes with butter before pouring a tablespoon of olive oil into each. (The butter will ensure the bread doesn’t stick.) Don’t touch the dough again for 2 to 4 hours depending on your environment.
After two to four hours, or when the dough looks like this…:
… it’s time to dimple it! You can use simply olive oil and salt — I recommend good, flaky sea salt for this. Note, the dough in the photo below spent three days in the fridge, and the dough was super bubbly!
if you are using rosemary, sprinkle it over the dough. Then pour two tablespoons of olive oil over the dough, and using your fingers, press straight down to create deep dimples. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt — again, something like Maldon is great here.
Transfer to oven immediately and bake at 425ºF for 25 minutes or until golden all around. Remove focaccia from pans and place on cooling racks.
How to Incorporate Rosemary, Herbs, and Other Ingredients & Toppings into Your Focaccia Dough
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is: How can I add other toppings or ingredients to my focaccia bread? You can do this in two ways:
- Add them on top as you would rosemary or other herbs. The key is to make sure the ingredients are slicked lightly with olive oil to ensure they do not burn in the oven. I like to sprinkle the rosemary over top of the dough, then drizzle it with olive oil, then dimple the dough.
- You can add them directly to the dough. In step one, when you whisk together the flour, salt, and instant yeast, add your ingredients — chopped olives, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted garlic — to the flour and toss to coat; then add the water.
How to Make a Focaccia Bread Art
Pictured above is my “Ode to Spring” (🤣) Focaccia Bread Art (or Garden Scape). As noted above, the key with adding toppings is to slick them lightly with olive oil to ensure they don’t completely char. Keep in mind that some items will char, and a little charring is not a bad thing.
To make a focaccia bread art:
- Follow the recipe through the step in which you dimple the dough just before baking. Arrange your toppings — sliced peppers, asparagus, scallions, olives, tomatoes, onions, etc. — over top and dimple again, pressing the ingredients into the dough to embed them — you can be more aggressive than you think.
- Brush the entire surface with olive oil; then sprinkle with sea salt.
- Bake as directed.
Tomato Focaccia
Pictured above is a cross between pissaladière and tomato focaccia. I love the addition of tomatoes to pissaladière because it adds a freshness and brightness, a hit of acidity to offset the sweet caramelized onions and salty anchovies, olives, and capers.
You can use any summer tomatoes you have on hand — diced cherry tomatoes, Roma, plum, sliced beefsteak tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, etc. If you choose to dice up Roma or plum tomatoes, there is no need to seed them, but leave any juices lingering on the cutting board behind.
Top the unbaked focaccia with a thin layer of tomatoes; then bake as directed.
How to Make Focaccia Bread Sandwiches
One of my favorite things to do with either the rounds of focaccia or the 9×13-inch slab of focaccia is to make a giant sandwich: simply halve the whole finished loaf of focaccia in half crosswise; fill it as you wish, close the sandwich; then slice and serve.
Here’s one of my favorites: Roasted Red Peppers, Olive Tapenade, & Whipped Honey Goat Cheese
Can I Make this Overnight Focaccia Without the Overnight Rise?
Yes, you can. In fact, in my cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs, I do not employ an overnight rise. Start-to-finish it can be made in about three hours. The finished bread will not be as pillowy, but it will still be light, airy, and delicious.
To skip the overnight rise, simply let the mixed dough rise at room temperature until doubled, about 1.5 to 2 hours. Then proceed with the recipe, knowing the second rise will only take about 30 minutes.
The Best, Easiest Focaccia Bread Recipe
- Total Time: 18 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 2 loaves
Description
Cold, refrigerated dough is the secret to making delicious focaccia! Allowing the dough to rest 18 to 24 hours in the fridge will yield extra-pillowy and airy focaccia, though if you are pressed for time, you can make this start-to-finish in 3 hours. This 4-ingredient recipe requires only 5 minutes of hands-on time. Video guidance below!
Adapted from the focaccia recipe in Bread Toast Crumbs.
A few notes:
- Plan ahead: While you certainly could make this more quickly, it turns out especially well if you mix the dough the day before you plan on baking it. The second rise, too, takes 2 to 4 hours.
- If you are short on time and need to make the focaccia tonight: Let the mixed dough rise at room temperature until doubled, about 1.5 to 2 hours. Then proceed with the recipe, knowing the second rise will only take about 30 minutes.
- You can use various pans to make this focaccia such as: two 9-inch Pyrex pie plates. (Use butter + oil to prevent sticking.) One 9×13-inch pan, such as this USA pan — do not split the dough in half, if you use this option, which will create a thicker focaccia . A 13×18-inch rimmed sheet pan — this creates a thinner focaccia, which is great for slab sandwiches.
- As always, for best results, use a digital scale to measure the flour and water.
- I love SAF instant yeast. I buy it in bulk, transfer it to a quart storage container, and store it in my fridge for months. You can store it in the freezer also.
- If you are using active-dry yeast, simply sprinkle the yeast over the lukewarm water and let it stand for 15 minutes or until it gets foamy; then proceed with the recipe.
- Flour: You can use all-purpose or bread flour here with great results. If you live in a humid environment, I would suggest using bread flour. If you are in Canada or the UK, also consider using bread flour or consider holding back some of the water. Reference the video for how the texture of the bread should look; then add water back as needed.
Ingredients
- 4 cups (512 g) all-purpose flour or bread flour, see notes above
- 2 teaspoons (10 g) kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast, see notes above if using active dry
- 2 cups (455 g) lukewarm water, made by combining 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 1/2 cups cold water
- butter for greasing
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- flaky sea salt, such as Maldon
- 1 to 2 teaspoons whole rosemary leaves, optional
Instructions
- Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and instant yeast. Add the water. Using a rubber spatula, mix until the liquid is absorbed and the ingredients form a sticky dough ball. Rub the surface of the dough lightly with olive oil. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel, cloth bowl cover, or plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator immediately for at least 12 hours or for as long as three days. (See notes above if you need to skip the overnight rise for time purposes.) NOTE: It is important the dough really be slicked with olive oil especially if you are using a cloth bowl cover or tea towel as opposed to plastic wrap or a hard lid. If you are using a tea towel, consider securing it with a rubber band to make a more airtight cover. If you do not slick the dough with enough oil, you risk the dough drying out and forming a crust over the top layer.
- Line two 8- or 9-inch pie plates or a 9×13-inch pan (see notes above) with parchment paper or grease with butter or coat with nonstick cooking spray. (Note: This greasing step may seem excessive, but with some pans, it is imperative to do so to prevent sticking. With my USA pans, I can get away with olive oil alone; with my glass baking dishes, butter is a must.)
- Pour a tablespoon of oil into the center of each pan or 2 tablespoons of oil if using the 9×13-inch pan. Using two forks, deflate the dough by releasing it from the sides of the bowl and pulling it toward the center. Rotate the bowl in quarter turns as you deflate, turning the mass into a rough ball. Use the forks to split the dough into two equal pieces (or do not split if using the 9×13-inch pan). Place one piece into one of the prepared pans. Roll the dough ball in the oil to coat it all over, forming a rough ball. Repeat with the remaining piece. Let the dough balls rest for 3 to 4 hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen (Note: no need to cover for this room temperature rise).
- Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 425°F. If using the rosemary, sprinkle it over the dough. Pour a tablespoon of oil over each round of dough (or two tablespoons if using a 9×13-inch pan). Rub your hands lightly in the oil to coat, then, using all of your fingers, press straight down to create deep dimples. If necessary, gently stretch the dough as you dimple to allow the dough to fill the pan. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt all over.
- Transfer the pans or pan to the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the underside is golden and crisp. Remove the pans or pan from the oven and transfer the focaccia to a cooling rack. Let it cool for 10 minutes before cutting and serving; let it cool completely if you are halving it with the intention of making a sandwich.
- Prep Time: 18 hours
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Bread
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
4,153 Comments on “Overnight, Refrigerator Focaccia = The Best Focaccia Bread Recipe”
Hello! I am loving this bread recipe. I have a question about a convection oven- I’m cooking it at 425 for 30 minutes and it’s not quite as browned as your photo. It still tastes great, but I’m curious if I should up the heat for less time?
Hi Tawny! Yes, try baking at 450ºF. Check after 15 minutes and lower the temp if it’s getting too brown. It sounds as though the higher temp should be fine if you’re not getting good browning at 425ºF.
Delicious… I have made this twice, the first I did some stretch and folds before letting rest over night and this second time just your recipe. Definitely like the latter as no extra work was needed. The whole family loves it and I like to cut it in half and make pizza with it.. Thanks
So nice to hear this, Paolo! Thanks so much for writing and sharing your notes 🙂 🙂 🙂
Holy smokes… this focaccia was a HUGE hit with my friends and family. Will definitely be making again.
Something I found helpful when I baked it a second time… I added one teaspoon barley malt syrup to the water before mixing the dough. As I let my dough sit in the fridge for 3 days, the yeast may eventually run out of sugars. The malt syrup gives it the sugar it needs to ensure a wonderful taste and beautiful color. Even though the malt syrup is sweet, it won’t affect the taste of the focaccia.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!!
Great tip, Dave! So nice to read all of this. Will definitely try the barley malt syrup tip. Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
Easiest focaccia recipe. So tasty. Thank you.
Great to hear, Krish!
I made this recipe & LOVED the flavor, but I had a problem with the amount of flour. I used King Arthur All Purpose flour using the “dip & level” approach to measuring it. I got to 512 grams after only 3 cups dry measure instead of 4! I stayed with the weight measurement but wonder if that was part of the trouble with the chewiness & slightly reduced volume of the finished bread. I am in Tucson, AZ so the elevation is only about 1000 feet. I will definitely try again, but would like clarification on dry measure vs weight first. Any suggestions?
Julie
Hi Julie! I’m happy to hear you stuck with the weight measurement — we all measure flour differently, which is why the weight measurement is the only accurate way to measure. Did you weigh the water as well? People have made this bread at all elevations, so that shouldn’t affect the turnout.
Very tasty bread. Thanks for the recipe. Question for you. If I wanted to make pizza using this recipe on a pizza stone, would I do anything different?
Great to hear Luke! This is my pizza dough recipe, which you will see is very very similar to this one: Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe (Tons of Tips )
You can also use this base recipe to make Sicillian-Style Pizza
I also live in Tucson and went with weight for both water and flour. It probably baked for about 30 minutes at 425 and probably could have gone for a touch longer, but otherwise had a great texture
Great to hear, Tim! Thanks for writing and sharing your notes re weights and baking time.
Delicious and so easy even I can make it. This will be a weekly staple at our house. Just got back from Italy , and this recipe hits the mail on the head
So great to hear this, Tanya 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks so much for writing.
I’m half Italian and never found any foccacia in the UK lived up to what I ate in Italy. This is phenomenal! I’ll never make it another way again. As you suggested using UK flour I did not need the full amount of water and I shaved off 3 minutes from the cooking time as I had to cook it at 220 celcius as the closest my oven could do to your suggested temperature.
Great to hear, Elena! Thanks so much for writing and sharing your notes regarding water and baking time.
DEVINE! I followed this recipe, refrigerating it for 2 days, added the salt brine that Samin Nosrat uses in her focccia recipe, and cooked it in a 13 x 18″ pan to get the thin and crispy focaccia my Florentine sister loves. I just came back from a fortnight in Florence and this focaccia was as good as any i tasted there. Or better. Thank you!
Amazing!! So great to hear this, Wendy! I have yet to try the salt brine … you are encouraging me to give it a go. Thanks!
I’ve never made focaccia (or bread) before, but I love baking. My friend posted this recipe and her bake looked amazing… Being gluten-free, I made this using Bob’s RedMill 1:1 gf flour.
It may not be as fluffy, but it’s so delicious. I added roasted garlic and rosemary. Yum!
Wonderful to hear this, Jennifer! People ask me all the time if they can use gluten-free flour here, and I never really know what to tell them. This is so helpful!
Wow! First time ever making bread. I thought for sure I would screw it up. But it was amazing! I kept it in the fridge about 24 hours and second rise about 3 hours. I seasoned with garlic, salt, and parmesan cheese. My bf and my parents loved it! I did too. It’s addicting. I can’t wait to make more. Thank you! ❤️
Wonderful to hear this, Kim! Thanks so much for writing and sharing all of this 🙂 🙂 🙂
My go-to focaccia recipe. Also, my only focaccia recipe, but, why try something different when this works so well?! This honestly is foolproof, and all of the extra advice you offer is perfect. I’m about to put another batch in the oven in just a few minutes!
Wonderful to hear this, Bronwen 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thank you for writing. Great to hear the notes are helpful. Happy Baking!
First time making Focaccia bread. Followed recipe and it turned out delicious! So easy and simple.
Great to hear, Heidi 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks for writing!
Ali,
Loved both the flavor and the texture of the bread as well as the ease of prep! My “dimples” did not “stay” they way yours did in the video. They kind of collapsed out of the dough. Not sure why, but it didn’t hurt anything.
You definitely want to put on the rosemary before making the dimples. I put it on afterward and probably half of it didn’t adhere to the loaf. Oh well, I started another batch an hour ago and we’ll try to remember the lessons learned!
Years ago I started making the Jim Lahey/NYT overnight, no knead bread. It was excellent, but it was a good bit more work than your focaccia recipe. Well done and thanks!
So nice to hear this, Bill! I hope the rosemary adhered better with your second batch. Regarding the dimples, it’s possible that waiting a bit longer before you dimpled might help them stay. Do you recall roughly how many hours the room temperature proof was?
Regardless, so glad you liked the ease of prep here as well as the result. Thanks for writing!
Great recipe. So easy and delicious.
Great to hear, Carolyn!
Will adding cheddar cheese to the dough itself create any problems in chemistry?
Nope!
Obsessed with this focaccia recipe, the detailed advice is very much appreciated!!
Great to hear, Helena!
What adjustments for high altitude?
You shouldn’t have to make any adjustments!
I followed this to the letter (except for cutting the focaccia after 10 mins…just couldn’t wait!) and OMG, my focaccia is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside! I’ve never made focaccia before so I am feeling proud of myself! Thank you for this recipe!
Wonderful to hear this, Kristin! Thanks so much for writing 🙂 🙂 🙂 Happy Baking 💕
Hi. I am so excited to try this recipe out. Do you use the SAF-Instant red label or gold label yeast? Thanks so much.
SAF red label 🎉
Hello Alexandra, Thank you for the recipe. I have been cooking with bread flour found in Bangkok where I was. Its constant success and everyone loves it. I am in Sydney now and its winter. I have tried with the bread flour I found locally with SAF instant yeast. The proof in the fridge worked very well. I could see it double the size in a couple of hours. The proof outside for 2-4 hours was a failure. The dough didnt rise that well. After 2 hours the dough didnt seem to rise well. I had to leave home so After 4-5 hours of course its fairly dry (my fault), after baking with gas oven at 225c its quite hard outside. I think the inside works. I know I left it an hour too long but even after first 2 hours it looked quite flat. The atmosphere here is much drier than Bangkok. Any tips to add for the Southern Hemisphere environment? Thank you so much.
Hi Wandee!
OK, a few thoughts: once you get the dough out of the fridge and into the baking pan, cover the pan with plastic wrap. This will prevent the dough from drying out. It’s possible that in the winter, the dough does need the full 4 hours to proof at room temperature for baking, so ensuring the dough doesn’t dry out in that time period is essential.
Are you using a scale to measure? How does the dough itself compare when made in Sydney vs Bangkok?
Hi Ali,
I use a scale for measurement. I think it’s the weather here is more dry than Bangkok for sure. I have tried the short hours one, it worked well. I think I have a better understanding of the humidity differences and be cautious about it. In Bangkok, it’s very humid and warm (and hot), the second proof was always amazing. Thank you for your advice and tips.
In addition, what I discovered was I worked on the dough like a naan/roti size and cook on the hot pan with some olive oil…. OMG the texture is divine….. I tested with both short hours dough and the overnight one….. They both are good but definitely the overnight in the fridge is my cup of tea. The texture is more chewy but soft….. pillowy as you described I think.
Thank you again for your recipe and inspiration and all. I am very amateur in the kitchen and I am building up my confidence in cooking, and I know the big part is from the success with your recipe.
🙏🙏🙏
Awww 🙂 🙂 🙂 So nice to read all of this, Wandee. Humidity affects dough/bread baking tremendously. Thanks so much for your kind words. Good luck on your bread baking journey!
Hi Ali, I cannot seem to make this without it sticking to whatever I bake it in, no matter how much oil I put in the pan ahead of time. I love that it is a very high hydration dough, but could that be the problem? Do you ever have issues with sticking? Thx!
Hi!
Are you buttering the pan before you add the oil? That is the trick with certain pans. I have no issues with sticking with my USA pans. I have lots of sticking issues with other pans, which is why I always recommend buttering the pan before adding the oil. Oil alone will not provide a nonstick barrier.
If you don’t want to use butter, you could use parchment paper 🙂
Please let me know what I did wrong. I’m not new to baking, but I wanted to try a focaccia. I picked your recipe because of the apparent ease of preparation and all the excellent reviews. I followed the instructions to the letter. All ingredients were scaled, I used KAF bread dough, and SAF instant yeast (red bag). The dough was in the refrigerator for about 20 hours. The dough was panned for 2 hours and then I proceeded to add ingredients (cut cherry tomatoes, rosemary, sea salt). Problem 1: the dough was very loose and dimpling was not possible; 2) There was essentially no “body” to the dough. The dough is still in the oven, I’m monitoring it every 5 minutes after the first 25 minutes at 425F. I’m at 40 minutes now, and there is a crust, but the interior is still soupy. Suggestions welcome. I’m not sure I can salvage this attempt, but there is no resemblance to the focaccia on the website. Thanks in advance for your input
Hi Jerry,
This is definitely a wet dough, but it sounds as though the hydration may be too high for you. Do you live in a humid environment? How did the bread bake in the end? 40 minutes is a very long bake time for this recipe, so something definitely is going on with the dough.
I was not paying attention and left the dough on the counter overnight (14 hours) instead of the fridge! I blame mom brain, but I’m wondering if this dough is salvageable. I made two recipes because I’m taking one to a friend who just had a baby. Will it be okay to make? What differences should I expect?
It should be fine! Sorry for the delay here … how did it turn out??
My guess is that maybe the dough felt a little weak and maybe a little wet after the 14 hours? But I have found this dough to be incredibly forgiving, so I’m hoping it worked out well for you.
Tried this very easy recipe and it worked a dream! Thank you so much!
Great to hear, Sheila! Thanks for writing 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you for sharing this lovely recipe. Would this dough freeze well? Or can i bake, then freeze and reheat?
You can freeze the dough (after the first rise, ball it up and freeze it), but the baked focaccia freezes beautifully. That is my preferred method.
Hi Alexandra! Help! This is THE most brilliant recipe and I’ve been making this for years… but I hadn’t made it for about 6 months until last week… different oven, different house and it came out really hard and not as high… I’m not sure whether I didn’t let it rise long enough the second time or my oven wasn’t warmed properly and then got too hot… any help would be greatly appreciated! I’m making it for 40 people in a few days eek!
Hi! Kerrin, are you using a different pan, too? Does the oven have an oven thermometer? Do you use a scale? These are my thoughts:
• Get an oven thermometer — they’re inexpensive and will help you really know the accuracy of your oven’s temperature.
• I prefer metal pans for focaccia.
• It sounds as though it maybe cooked too quickly — that it browned and crisped too fast and so you didn’t get quite the rise.
• If you have time to experiment again: try letting the dough stay in the fridge for 24 hours; let proof for 3 – 4 hours at room temperature. Dimple then bake, maybe at a lower temp to start: 400ºF or so if you don’t have an oven thermometer in place yet.
Excited to bake this tomorrow! My only feedback would be the salt—2 teaspoons of salt is way more than 10 mg so something seems off there. I actually made it with 2 tbs at first and the dough was incredibly salty, which is what made me double check the weight you have listed. Overall though, solid recipe and I’m excited to see how it turns out!
Hi Lindsay! What type of salt did you use? I find 2 teaspoons (or a little bit more) of Diamond Crystal kosher salt to be close to 10 grams. 2 tablespoons would definitely make the dough too salty! Bummer that happened.
I have made this recipe 3 times – The first time it turned out great. The second it was tough (maybe because I had to cut the fridge proving short. I just finished the 3rd and it is too salty on top. Do you have an approx amount of Maldron sea salt that you sprinkle on the top?
Hi Kristi! Are you using a scale to measure the flour, water, etc? I don’t, unfortunately, have a quantity for the Maldon sea salt, but I would just use a light hand. Next time, you could measure 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon and see how it turns out; then depending on how it turns out, add more or less next time around.
LOVE THIS! It was incredibly easy to make (especially in a busy household) and was amazing. Seriously, some of the, if not the, best focaccia bread ever. We made open faced sandwiches with goat cheese and roasted red peppers… there are no words. Thank you!
So great to hear this, Laurita! And your sandwiches sound delicious 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks for writing!
Hi there! Do I need to adjust rising times for 1st or 2nd rise for summer in Denver right now? Should the second rise be in a moist proving oven? Thank you!
Hi! If you notice your dough is drying out, you can cover the pan with plastic wrap for the 2nd rise. In the summer, the second rise definitely might go faster than in the winter. First rise should be the same.