Simple and Savory Focaccia Bread

The weather turned cold and foggy yesterday, and there is nothing like a cold and foggy day to inspire you to put on a pot of soup.  And there is nothing like being up to your elbows slicing and dicing veggies for your soup to make you cast all your cares to the whirling wind outside and make a batch of bread to go with it.

I won’t claim that this is the most authentic focaccia bread; but I will claim that it is simple and savory and it mops up soup or balsamic vinegar and oil like a champ!  If you happen to have any leftover, this bread makes a delicious sandwich. Good luck with that...

Proof 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast in 1 cup warm water {about 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit}.  Give it a swirl or stir and add 1 Tablespoon of sugar.  Just sprinkle it evenly over the top.

Yeast will become bubbly. Ours took about 7 minutes and looked like this:

While yeast is proofing, mix 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, and 1 Tablespoon of crushed rosemary.



We'll add additional rosemary, red onions, and salt to the top of our bread

before it goes in the oven.  I like to get them prepped now.



Add flour mixture to proofed yeast and knead for five minutes in a mixer or ten minutes by hand.

Dough should be soft and smooth but not too sticky. 

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

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Dough should raise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Punch down the dough and separate it into two equal pieces, place on baking sheet, and use your fingers to make crater-like indentations in the top of the dough.

Cover with a cloth or plastic wrap an allow the dough to rise until doubled in size, about another 30 minutes.



While dough is raising, sauté 1/2 medium purple onion, sliced,  in a small amount of oil until just wilted. 



Garnish loaves with remaining (1 Tablespoon) crushed rosemary, sautéed onions, and salt before putting into the oven. ** You may like pushing the garnishes deep into the bread before the second rise.  There is really no wrong way to do this--simple and savory.  Be creative.  Just make sure it gets it's second rise!

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

We added cheese to one of our loaves(at the end of the baking process) and broiled it for about a minute until it was bubbly. Remove the bread from the oven and drizzle with an additonal 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. 

The actual labor time for this recipe is so small, but you do need to pick a morning or afternoon when you are around to meet the raising and shaping requirements.  Stormy days lend themselves to this recipe. Sun-dried tomatoes are a great topping for this bread as well.  Go grab the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and do a bit of taste testing; there are two loaves after all! 

Simple and Savory Focaccia Bread  by Sweet Suppertime

1 cup warm water 

1 Tablespoon active dry yeast

1 Tablespoon sugar

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon rosemary, crushed or chopped

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Topping

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 Tablespoon rosemary, crushed or chopped

1/2 purple onion sliced

olive oil for sauteing the onion

optional: grated cheese of your choice

Keeping the temperature of the warm water at around 100 degrees, add yeast and sugar to water and set aside for about 7 minutes or until bubbly.

While the yeast is proofing combine flour, salt, rosemary and olive oil in a bowl.

Once the yeast has become bubbly, add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix for five minutes if using a mixer or 10 minutes if kneading by hand.  Start the mixer slowly so that you don't splash your flour all over and then increase it to a speed where the motor is not laboring.  On my KitchenAid I started on 1 and moved up to speed 3.  The dough should form a nice ball and be soft but not sticky.  I usually reserve about a 1/4 cup of the flour to add as the dough mixes.  It's so much easier to add flour than water!

Lightly oil the top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise until it doubles in size.   About 30 minutes.

If you are going to top the Focaccia Bread with any toppings, this is a great time to prepare the toppings.  For this I sliced 1/2 of a purple onion and sauteed it in olive oil on medium heat until the onion had just started to wilt.  Have your rosemary and salt handy for topping your bread after it finishes it's first rise and you shape it.

Once the dough has risen nicely, divide the dough into two balls and pull the edges in to form a ball.  You can bake this in any pan, today I liked placing it on parchment, freestanding,.  Place the dough balls on a large baking tray on opposite ends of the pan so that when they raise during baking they don't fight with each other.  Push your fingers deep down in the dough to form the traditional look of focaccia.  Now you are ready for the second rise.**  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for about another 30 minutes, or until double.

Bake at 375 for 15-30 minutes or until golden brown.  If I am adding any kind of cheese ( which I like to do because it holds all those yummy onions together)  I add it during the last 5 minutes of baking.  If it isn't as crisp as I would like the cheese to be I broil it for about 1 minute

Serve this up with soup or delicious olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  My favorite right now is a mango balsamic with an herbed olive oil.  

**You have three choices for garnishing;

1.  Either garnish before the second rise, pushing the toppings down into the bread or

2.  Wait until the loaves have had their second raise (doubling in size) and add the garnishes right before oven time.

3.  Don't garnish at all

Side note as you decide to branch out here-- try putting the dough in a round or square cake pan and dousing the bottom of the pan liberally with olive oil.  It makes the crust crispy and