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Easy, homemade and the best Focaccia with garlic, rosemary and oregano toppings. This focaccia bread recipe is soft, fluffy and great as an appetizer for Italian dishes.
Table of Contents
Focaccia Bread
What is Focaccia?
Focaccia is a soft and fluffy flat bread made with olive oil and various toppings.
It originated in Genoa, Italy, and has since become one of the most popular breads and Italian recipes in the world.
You can eat Focaccia bread any time of the day, with coffee for breakfast, with a glass of wine during meal time, or as a snack or appetizer throughout the day.
Other Recipes You Might Like
Garlic Bread
Milk Bread
Pull Apart Garlic Bread
Focaccia Recipe
This authentic Italian Focaccia recipe is one of the easiest bread recipes ever.
It’s 100% homemade, easy, no fuss and takes less than 2 hours.
The recipe calls for five (5) basic ingredients:
Olive oil
All-purpose flour
Instant yeast
Warm water
Salt
Focaccia Toppings:
You can add a variety of toppings. Here are some of the popular ingredients to top off the bread:
Garlic
Herbs such as rosemary, oregano, sage or Italian basil.
Olives can be added to the dough.
Sliced onion can be used as a Focaccia topping.
Vegetables such as cherry tomatoes, artichoke and mushrooms can also be added as the toppings.
How to Make Focaccia?
To make focaccia pizza, first you mix all the ingredients above to form a sticky dough. You can do it without mixer and by hand.
Transfer the dough into a baking pan and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes.
Gently poke the dough all over with your index finger and add the toppings.
For the toppings, I used sea salt flakes, garlic, fresh rosemary and oregano, yielding the best homemade Focaccia bread.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is It Vegan?
This is a healthy vegan recipe as it calls for olive oil instead of butter.
Also, no diary products are present in the recipe.
What Are the Most Popular Toppings for Focaccia?
Rosemary and garlic are two of the most popular toppings.
You can use either rosemary, garlic or combine the both.
This bread is best served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It’s a fabulous side dish or appetizer for dinner.
For an authentic Italian meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
Italian Shrimp Pasta
Spaghetti alle Vongole
Italian Braised Chicken
Creamy Garlic Parmesan Gnocchi
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Focaccia
Easy, homemade and the best Focaccia with garlic, rosemary and oregano toppings. This Focaccia bread recipe is soft, fluffy and great as an appetizer.
4.55 from 479 votes
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By Bee Yinn Low
Yield 6People
Prep 10 minutesmins
Additional Time 1 hourhr
Cook 30 minutesmins
Total 1 hourhr40 minutesmins
Ingredients
2tablespoonsolive oil(to drizzle onto the pan)
Dough:
1 1/2cupswarm water
3tablespoonsolive oil
1 1/4teaspoonssalt
3 1/2cupsall-purpose flour
1tablespooninstant yeast or active dry yeast
Toppings:
1teaspoonsea salt flakes or kosher salt
2clovesgarlic(minced)
1tablespoonschopped rosemary
1tablespoonchopped oregano
Instructions
Drizzle about 2 tablespoons olive oil into a 9" x 13" (22cm x 33cm) pan.
Combine all of the Dough ingredients, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 60 seconds.
Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan, cover the pan, and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes.
While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Gently poke the dough all over with your index finger.
Drizzle it lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with the salt, minced garlic, rosemary and oregano.
Bake the bread until it's golden brown, 30 minutes. Remove it from the oven, wait 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack and cut into pieces. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Like croissants and brioche buns, focaccia is high in calories and fat. Most people aren't aware of it, but it contains a lot of olive oil, which in excess has the same effect. To lose weight, people should choose whole-grain or rye bread, which has more fibre and is lower in fat and calories.
Venetian focaccia is sweet, baked for Easter and resembles the traditional Christmas cake panettone. Sugar and butter are used instead of olive oil and salt. Focaccia barese, which is common in Puglia in southern Italy, is made with durum wheat flour and topped with salt, rosemary, tomatoes or olives.
Flour - I used a mixture of bread flour and All-purpose flour (high grade or strong and plain if you're not in the US). Bread flour is slightly higher in protein than All-purpose, so gives the focaccia just a little more chew. I love the mix of both, but just AP flour works just fine too!
Now, focaccia uses plenty of olive oil, not only in the dough, but for kneading, proofing, in the baking pan, and on the bread's surface before baking. All this fat means the texture is light, moist and springy, the crust emerges golden and crisp, plus the center stays soft for days afterwards.
White Bread. White bread doesn't rank too high when it comes to nutrition. ...
Specialty Breads: Ciabatta, Pita, Focaccia and Brioche. Most specialty-style breads, like ciabatta, pita bread, focaccia and brioche are made with refined white flour.
Focaccia bread contains 20.4 grams of carbohydrates per slice, 1 gram of fiber, and 1 gram of sugar and is considered a refined carbohydrate. It is not high in sugar (only 1 gram per slice), but may raise blood sugars more rapidly due to lack of fiber.
But though pizza can stand in for a meal, focaccia is more of a snack, or at most an appetizer. In Italy, it's a popular walking-around food. Also, though cold pizza may have a certain raffish charm, focaccia really needs to be eaten when it's hot to be at its best.
Serving: Focaccia is incredibly versatile and can be served as an antipasto, appetizer, table bread or snack. In contrast, ciabatta serves as a delicious sandwich bread.
Thick or thin? The thickness of a focaccia can vary, too, but an authentic focaccia genovese should be rather thin, even if it needn't be quite as thin as my version presented here. So many non-Italian renditions of “focaccia” are more like bread in their thickness.
I like to use a straight-sided 9 x 13-inch metal baking pan for this recipe, but a Pyrex 9 x 13-inch baking pan will do in a pinch. Before you start on the recipe, be sure to read all of the tips at Baking Together #28: Making and Baking No-Knead Focaccia.
Bake the focaccia until it's light golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the focaccia from the oven, and immediately turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Enjoy focaccia hot from the oven, or warm; focaccia is best the same day it's made.
Not allowing the focaccia to proof long enough in the fridge will prevent enough gluten from being formed. This causes flat and dense focaccia once baked.
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.
When freshly baked bread tastes bitter the reason is often that is was left to raise for too long in too warm a place. Alcohol may develop in it, which basically means that the dough has gone bad.
Can you overproof focaccia dough? You can definitely overproof focaccia, but it is difficult. There is so much oil in the dough, and very little sugar, so the yeast is "sleepy" or slow due to both of those elements and less likely to overproof.
Pros: Whole Grain Options: Focaccia can be made with whole-grain flour, which is higher in fiber and nutrients compared to refined flour. Whole grain focaccia provides more sustained energy and better satiety. Olive Oil: Many traditional focaccia recipes use olive oil as a key ingredient.
Introduction: My name is Domingo Moore, I am a attractive, gorgeous, funny, jolly, spotless, nice, fantastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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