Focaccia is a buttery bread that can be served as an antipasto, with a meal or with your favourite drink. It can be topped with herbs, tomato, roasted veggies, cheese, all of the above or just with sea salt.
It’s a delicious buttery bread that is ideally served the day it’s baked and even more so still warm from the oven.
Unlike regular baguette or other breads, this recipe calls for 1/2 c of olive oil combined into the dough along with another 1/2 cup of oil to bake it in. Thus the buttery deliciousness (yes, it’s a real word)
Use quality ingredients to make your bread. Fresh herbs, sea salt and quality olive oil will amplify the flavour of your focaccia.
I like to slice off the edges in 1″ thickness for two reasons. It keeps the rest of the pieces in full squares and it offers several pieces for guests who aren’t fans of cooked tomato but still like the herbs and salt (like kids) or can be cut into cubes and dried as croutons.
Cutting off the edges and placing a tomato in the centre gives each guest a square fluffy, buttery piece of focaccia while the grape tomato gives a bit of sweetness.
This recipe makes one big bread for a good size group of anywhere from 12 – 25 people.
Herb and Grape Tomato Focaccia
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cup Fresh water, room temp
- 2.5 tsp Yeast
- 1 tbsp Granulated Sugar
- 5 Cups All-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp Sea Salt
- 1 Cup Extra Virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp Herbs du Provence Optional
- 2-3 tsp Fleur du sal or coarse sea salt Optional
- 15 Grape tomatoes, ripe and whole
Instructions
- Add yeast and sugar to warm water. Let yeast bloom and become fragrant, about 15-20 minutes.
- Add 1/2 cup of olive oil, 5 cups of flour, sugar and 1 tbsp sea salt. Using a mixer with hook attachment combine well, scraping down sides periodically. Let machine run additional 3-5 minutes to knead well adding more flour as needed to prevent dough from becoming sticky.
- Once dough is well formed remove from mixer and cover, set aside in warm draft-free place and allow to rise, doubling in size, about an hour.
- Once dough has doubled in size remove dough and knead a further 2 minutes. by hand, flouring as necessary to prevent it from becoming sticky. Then roll out dough to size of cookie sheet. Pour remaining 1/2 cup of oil to cookie sheet then transfer dough and press finger-tips into dough, creating small hollows, forming the characteristic focaccia. Allow it to rise again, about another hour. I like to put mine in my oven to keep it out of drafts.
- Remove from oven after second rise. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Sprinkle with herbs and sea salt. Press grape tomatoes into dough. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Once cooled cut up into square pieces.