At the moment the whole of Europe is baking under a hot sun. But still I turn on the oven because I can’t help baking, even at temperatures of 30 degrees C and more. Hot weather triggers images of Mediterranean food: colors of red, purple, orange and green. Lavender, tomatoes, olive oil, rosemary and thyme….I can see this focaccia on a big wooden table under a shady tree. Good wine and good company will do the rest.
Enjoy
Ingredients for the Focaccia
350 g flour
15 g fresh yeast / 5 g instant yeast
9 g sea salt
Teaspoon of sugar or honey
+/- 200 ml lukewarm water
Splash of olive oil
Ripe cherry or date tomatoes
Fresh herbs from the garden (go wild)
Salt and pepper
Baking tray (20 x 30 cm)
Make the focaccia
Let the fresh yeast dissolve for 5 minutes in a bit of the lukewarm water. Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add the yeast and sugar in a small hole in the flour. Add the rest of the water. Bring everything together. When the dough starts forming a ball, add the olive oil. Mix for about 15 minutes by hand or 8-10 minutes with the Kitchenaid. Leave to prove at room temperature for about 1 hour.
Now gently press the air out of the dough, knead for a minute and shape it so that it fits your baking tray. Cover the fresh herbs (you can chop them up if you want or leave hole) in olive oil. Pour this mixture over the dough and make sure every part of the surface is covered. Add the little tomatoes and scatter them nicely over the dough. Now make indents with your fingers and or thumbs in the dough, getting the characteristic focaccia holes. Add some salt and ground black pepper. Leave to prove again for about 30-45 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven at 220ºC / 430ºF for about 30 minutes.
RVW says
What might this recipe look like if converted to sourdough?
RVW
Weekend Bakers says
Hi RVW,
Take 100 grams of the flour and 100 grams of the water and add 10 grams sourdough culture to that. Leave overnight and add this preferment to the rest of the dough for this recipe. Then double the proofing times given in the recipe. This should be a good starting point for this recipe, but maybe you need to adapt a bit based on your conditions.
Siegried says
Hello,
I have made this focaccia with sourdough and speltflour. It turned out very beautiful and delicious. Very delicious. The starter rested for 12 hours. I use a heatmat that’s normally used to warm young plants to have a stable temperature. I doubled the proofing time. I think with 20% less water in recipes converted to speltflour works very well. You feel the dough settle and develop during kneading. I did it by hand, during 15 minutes. A very nice, lovely mediteranian bread.
I swap the regular wheatflour to spelt or my own glutenfree blend. I don’t digest wheat very well. A rye starter and sourdough speltbread makes it very easy to digest. I noted that you need less water, more kneading time and more proofing time. But once you have that I easily make the recipes from weekend bakery . I eat bread again and with great taste. I love the slowness of making bread. Also the other recipes turned out very well.
Thank you for the good recipes and all the effort in this site. Love from België
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you so much Siegried, for sharing your knowledge and experience with our recipes and baking with spelt and sourdough. Excellent you can use our recipes as a base and make them your own and get such good results.
Wishing you many happy baking hours,
Ed & Marieke