I Love Focaccia

Giving King Arthur's recipe of the year a spin in my kitchen.

I truly love nothing more than a caprese sandwich on fluffy, salty focaccia. Add prosciutto and I may weep a little. While I’m not too much of a bread baker— though I do know how to bake some basic sourdough and other breads— I really enjoy baking bread for fun. We all need a little fun here and there! Dare I say I’m also in a non-sweet era at the moment? That makes things a little harder for Alexander Bakes, but nonetheless, I prevail.

Time to break out the dough whisk!

I’m really wanting to find a way to incorporate other great recipes in my Substack, whether it’s from my favorite trusted sources or another baker in the community. So to start, I’m giving King Arthur’s Recipe of The Year a try! It’s been on my to-try list for a while: their "Big and Bubbly Focaccia” that’s based off of a recipe by Martin Philip in the Big Book of Bread. I don’t have this book, but one that I would recommend for anyone wanting to learn about bread would be The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo. I’d categorize it as a text book because it’s super informative and provides a lot of formulas for everything from focaccia (I’ve tried it and it’s great) to soft dinner rolls. Maurizio’s book focuses on sourdough, though, and this King Arthur recipe is made in one day from start to finish. Different beasts, but I’m hoping this King Arthur one delivers! For the record, I’m making this recipe verbatim. No changes, no substitutions, no tweaking… Crazy, I know. If you wanna watch me make it, here you go!

The Ingredients

These are pretty straightforward and totally accessible. I was surprised that it calls for all purpose flour— so surprised that I still took out the bread flour from my cabinet before remembering “wait, I don’t need that today!” I love that it calls for a certain temperature of water, and all of the ingredients are provided in grams, which is how I’ll be making the recipe (yas, King Arthur).

Original King Arthur recipe linked here.

Dough:
3 cups (360g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons (9g) table salt
1 teaspoon (5g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (3g) instant yeast
1 1/4 cups (284g) water, warm (90°F to 110°F)*
1 1/2 tablespoons (18g) extra-virgin olive oil

For the pan and topping:
2 tablespoons (26g) extra-virgin olive oil, divided
flaky sea salt

The Method

The written method for this is very thorough, which will come in handy for those trying bread baking for the first time. I find it quite long for an easy focaccia recipe, but, I do love all of the information it provides. 16 steps is a bit much for me, so I’m not going to paste it all here, but I’ll provide an abbreviated version.

1. Make the dough: Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Add water and oil and stir until a sticky dough forms. Cover and set the bowl aside for 15 minutes.

2. Use a wet hand to perform dough folds, lifting the dough from the edge and folding down towards the center. Go in a circle, folding the dough down 8 to 12 times, then flip it over so the smooth side is up. Cover and 15 minutes.

3. Repeat the folding process, then rest another 15 minutes. Do a third set of folds, rest 15 minutes. Do a final fourth set of folds. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 1 hour. It should double in size.

4. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray. Line the pan with a 3-inch strip of parchment, with excess parchment hanging over the edges (so you can lift and remove the baked bread later). Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and tilt it around to distribute.

5. Add the focaccia dough to the pan (carefully to avoid deflating the air bubbles) and turn it over once or twice to coat with oil. Cover and let rise 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until it’s “marshmallowy and jiggly.” (Interesting descriptor!) Towards the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 475º F.

6. Use oiled fingers to stretch the risen dough to the edges of the pan. Make dimples in the dough with your fingers. (There’s a great video of this step on their original recipe). Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then sprinkle with flaky salt. Bake 15-18 minutes.

7. Remove the focaccia from the oven and lift it out of the pan. Turn off the oven and slide the focaccia back in for 5-7 minutes, until the sides are golden and crisp. Remove and cool completely.

It sounds like a lot of work, but most of the process is inactive time. Besides the folding (which you’re doing instead of using a mixer), it’s mainly proofing time. I do think this recipe is best for a day when you don’t have much going on, so you can babysit the dough.

The Results

I can see why they coined this “The Recipe of the Year”— it’s an excellent focaccia! I will be keeping it in my little recipe box, and whenever I need bread on the fly (aka same day), I’ll pull this one out. The texture is perfect, even though I may have deflated it a bit too much when dimpling the dough. Flavor-wise, it’s giving mall pretzel in the best way possible. Salty, yeasty (not too much though), and crispy. I think the major things coming into play here are the second bake (crisp me up plz) and letting the dough rise for hours. You simply cannot make bread in under an hour and expect it to be flavorful and voluminous, and the team at King Arthur knows this. Make this ASAP if you love focaccia as much as I do!

In case you wanna make the little garlic bread bites: cut the bread into 2-inch cubes. Preheat the oven to 400º. Mix together softened butter, a few cloves of roasted garlic (or raw if it’s all you have time for), a pinch of salt, pepper, and some chopped parsley. Spread on all sides of the cubes and bake, flipping once, for 10-15 minutes, until toasty.

P.S. - Did I turn mine some of my loaf into buttery little garlic bread cubes? Of course I did. 10/10 recommend!

P.S.S. - In other news, I’m now writing some articles for Buzzfeed! If you’re a Trader Joe’s fan, check out my latest: a line up of their best freezer products (imho).