Focaccia - italian white bread for sunday-feasts and holidays

[DetlefK]

Focaccia is a bread typically home-made only made for special occasions, like Sundays or a holiday-feast, and you can find it only in some restaurants and bakeries, because it needs to be hand-made. (See Steps 3 and 4 below.)

It's typically served alongside a several-course meal.



For a baking-dish of 30x20=600 cm² (12x8=96 inch²). If your dish is a different size, simply rescale the weights. And it needs a rim about 4cm (1.5 inch) high. The bread will be about 1 inch high.

Serves 4-6 as a side-dish:
- 250g flour
- 200ml water
- large pinch of salt
- yeast
- pinch of sugar
- a shot of olive-oil

toppings:
The two most traditional toppings are "olive-oil + coarse salt + rosemary" and "olive-oil + halved cherry-tomatos + rosemary".
I did "olive-oil + regular salt + oregano".



DAY 1
1.
Mix the water, sugar and yeast, let it rest for about 15 minutes.

2.
Mix the flour and the salt in a bowl. Add the yeast-water and the olive-oil. Knead into a dough with a spatula/spoon until well-combined. The dough will be very soft and sticky. DO NOT KNEAD THE DOUGH EVER AGAIN AFTER IT HAS RESTED.

3.
Let it rest for 1 hour. Scrape down the dough from the edge of the bowl. Wet your hands with water (to prevent the dough from sticking to you), then grab a handful of the edge of the dough, gently pull it upwards and fold it over the center of the dough to stretch the gluten-fibers in the dough. Repeat step by step along the whole edge.

4.
Repeat Step 3.

5.
Let it rest over night in the fridge.

DAY 2

6.
Oil your baking-tray with a very thin, even layer of olive-oil. Oil the walls of the baking-tray with your finger.

7.
Carefully pour and scrape the dough as one big blob into the baking-tray. Wet your fingers with water and gently poke and prod and push the dough until it covers the entire bottom of the tray. Use your fingertips to make dimples into the dough every half inch or inch or so. Let it rest for 2 hours.

8.
Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Sprinkle the dough with salt and herbs and a little bit of olive-oil. Bake for about 20-30 minutes until nice golden-brown.

9.
Flip out of the baking-tray and let it cool on a wire-rack, so the bread doesn't get soggy on the bottom while cooling. Pour some olive-oil into a small bowl and brush the still-hot crust with the oil so it can soak in. (Important: This needs to be done when the bread is still as hot as possible, or else it won't soak.)



Let it cool down to luke-warm or room-temperature, cut into squares and serve.