The Best Step by Step Sourdough Focaccia

This sourdough focaccia has a chewy and soft interior and a deliciously crispy exterior.

This combination of texture in this focaccia comes from an airy sourdough leavened dough that’s coated in a generous amount of olive oil. While it bakes, this olive oil crisps up the outside of the dough.

Sourdough focaccia has a been a recipe that’s been requested by a few my readers. I’m pleased it was because I love focaccia so I was more than happy to create a sourdough version!

Focaccia using sourdough is a fun one to make. I’ve used a very wet dough, with nearly 87% hydration, but the working of the dough itself is very minimal. A few stretch and folds to give it some strength, but the rest is relying on a long and slow fermentation.

It’s a 2 day process.

Day 1 is the feeding of the starter and the mixing and stretching of the dough. It then goes in the refrigerator for a long cold proof overnight.

Day 2, the dough is pressed into the pan along with plenty of olive oil, and left to rise and double. Afterwards it’s topped with salt, herbs and olives, and baked.

The Starter

A 100% hydration sourdough starter is needed for this recipe. That’s one that has been fed equal weights flour and water.

I use a ratio of 1:2:2 to fed my starter in preparation for the dough. That means 1 part starter, 2 parts flour and 2 parts water. For this bread, I measured out 35g starter, 70g flour and 70g water.

This made approximately 175g starter. 120g is used for the focaccia and the remainder can fed and stored in the fridge ready for the next time.

Use the starter when it has at least doubled (if not tripled) but before it collapses.

The Dough

While the starter is rising, the main bread flour and water are combined in a bowl to autolyse. This is the period where the flour hydrates and it helps it become extensible and easier to work with.

Use a strong white bread flour with a protein level of at least 10.5%.

This step can be started at any stage after feeding the starter. A minimum of a 30 minutes autolyse is preferable.

When the starter is ready it’s added to the dough along with the salt. Use wet hands to squish this together until well combined.

This sloppy wet dough now sits for 15 minutes, and then it’s time to start stretch and folding.

I usually prefer a coil fold when making sourdough bread but for the focaccia I’m doing a traditional stretch and fold because I find it easier to do so in this case.

Over a period of 2 hours, perform 4 sets of stretch and folds, one every 30 minutes. In each set, stretch and fold the dough over 4-5 times, turning the bowl each turn. As each set passes, the dough becomes more and more elastic.

Here is a video for the stretch and folds. Each time the dough sits, cover it with a plate to stop it drying out.

After the final stretch and fold the dough sits at room temperature (between 20-24 °C) for 2 hours before being transferred to the fridge for 8-20 hours.

The Next Day

The next day, remove the cold dough from the fridge and generously pour olive oil into a baking pan or cast-iron skillet. A lot of olive oil needs to be used. This creates that delicious and crispy fried texture, and will stop the bread from sticking in the pan.

I like baking my focaccia in my either my 27cm or 30cm cast-iron skillet. The pictured focaccia is in a 30cm skillet (the 27cm skillet makes a slightly higher bread). Alternatively you could use a 9×13 inch (33 x 23cm) baking pan.

Rub some olive oil on your fingers and push the dough out to fill the pan. The cold dough will likely spring back at first, so press what you can and then wait 10 minutes before continuing.

Once it has filled the pan, the dough needs to rise and double until it is jiggly and puffy. This can take anywhere between 3-7 hours depending on room temperature.

It’s winter in NZ now so I create a warm spot by gently preheating my oven, then turning it off but keeping the light on.

You can cover the dough at this point or, brush it with olive oil to stop the dough drying out.

Dimpling the Dough

Now is the fun part!

The dough should be puffy after rising, and now it’s time to create some dimples into this dough. This is to de-gas the dough a bit, so it doesn’t rise too high in the oven.

Then top it with your favourite toppings. My favourites are fresh rosemary, olives and coarse sea salt.

You could use cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced potato, capers, thyme, onion, garlic…so many possibilities!

Baking

The focaccia is baked in a hot oven for 20-25 until it is golden brown.

While it is hot from the oven, run a butter knife along the edge of the cast-iron skillet to loosen the edges, so that the bread can be lifted out easily.

Transfer it to a cooling rack and let it cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

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