FOCACCIA

Focaccia, or white pizza

Around Italy practically every bakery offers its own more or less thick, more or less soft focaccia. In fact we are talking about a real archetype in the field of baking whose origins are almost impossible to find.

It requires few ingredients: type 00 flour, water, olive oil, yeast and salt.

I prefer to use olive oil in the dough for a matter of lightness of the dough and flavour.

Then there is the processing, long: from the dough to the oven, to respect the times of a correct leavening. The result is a focaccia about 1” – 1-1/2” high, crunchy, with the typical irregular holes where the oil and salt crystals are concentrated.

Biting into one is a real treat for the palate: indeed, the advice is to taste it facing the tongue so as to amplify this sensation to the maximum.

INGREDIENTS:

500 g of 00 flour.
1 g. Dry yes
40g. Olive oil
10 g. salt
350ml. Room temperature water.

FOR THE DECORATION:

3 Teablespoon olive oil.
Salt coarse enough.
Rosemary as required.
Extra virgin olive oil as required.

PREPARATION:

In a bowl or in the mixer, we put the flour and the baking powder and the oil ①.
Let’s start kneading and adding water little by little.
We knead for about 5 minutes, and when the mixture is homogeneous, we add the salt, and we continue to knead so that the gluten mesh will be perfectly formed ②.
Let it rest for an hour, remove the dough, and put it in a plastic bag ③. We seal and put in the refrigerator for the next day.

The following day, we remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it rest for about an hour.

Let’s take an Aluminum Foil Pans, put 3 tablespoons of olive oil and rotating it we make sure that the oil spreads well on the bottom and on the sides ④.

We open the bag and place the dough in the pan ⑤. Wet your fingers with oil and press the entire surface of the focaccia with your fingertips, so that it is homogeneous and uniform ⑥.

We put the pan in a plastic bag and let it rest for about 2 hours ⑦. After this time, remove the pan and flatten it again until the dough covers all the corners well and is uniform ⑧.
We put it back in the bag and wait another 2 hours.

After this time, we remove the pan from the bag, with the help of a spatula ⑨ we make sure that the dough has not stuck to the edges, and with the help of a fork we make holes all over the dough.

Gently drizzle the surface with extra virgin olive oil, coarse salt and rosemary ⑩, or with tomato sauce, oregano ⑪, coarse salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, without exaggerating.

We take aluminum foil and cover the pan ⑪, and with a fork we make 4 small holes ⑫.

We turn on the oven at 500°F and when it has reached the temperature we put the pan in the oven for 20 minutes. After this time, remove the aluminum foil and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes until the surface is crispy and golden.

If you want to bake it at 550°F it will be 15 minutes and 5 minutes uncovered.

Remove the pan from the oven, let it rest for 5 minutes and then remove the focaccia ⑬.

Serve at your pleasure.

If you like, you can stuff the dough with sun dried tomatoes and then decorate it as you like.