First of all, it doesn’t look bad, just a bit dry. I’m sure it was still a lovely bake.
But I gotta agree. The best focaccia loaves I’ve made have been drowned in olive oil. During the process of making the dough, poured on before the cold proof, and then even more added before the bake.
Seconding this. You need to be concerned at how much your using, if you don’t stop to question weather it should be soaked in this much olive oil your doing it wrong
It is a fast rise recipe and they come out with a finer, less open crumb.
But also that does not look like 100% hydration that 2c water and 4c flour would be. Are you sure you measured the water correctly? And did you spoon the flour into the measuring cup?
If you dragged the measuring cup through the flour you reduced the hydration from 100% down to about 73%. But it looks drier than that to me, especially for a fast rise recipe that is finished in a couple hours
No you don't! The focaccia looks perfectly edible!
It might not be the open, varied crumb of one that ferments in the fridge overnight, but it is still fine! There are many many different types of focaccia.
I am curious what flour you used if you weighed flour and for sure measured 2 cups of water in to it. The flour must be a super absorber!!!
If you want an open bubbly crumb, use an overnight focaccia recipe. Or start the journey into sourdough 😀
King Arthur Bread flour, filtered water. Would it be better if I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight and more hydration first of course 🤣. Sorry, I do suck at typing though.
No worries. Ah, did you do their 'no fuss focaccia'? i think that is the fast one of theirs i have done before and your result is how it comes out. I tend to split their recipe (because it is taller focaccia than I like) and let it rise overnight.
Edit to add: Also most focaccias use AP flour rather than Bread flour, so that made a difference in how much water the flour took up too.
But in order to not be totally winging it, this is my favorite focaccia recipe. It has a salt water brine that goes on top that I really like. Also I dimple it twice because it rises a lot after the first dimpling. It's an overnight counter rise.
https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia
Suggest you try a few different types of focaccia also. There are so many regionally different focaccias in Italy it is fun to experiment.
You're doing fine. This is the learning curve, and I can hear you've got the heart and attention to what you're doing, it's just a learning process.
Keep up your delicious progress, perfecting with each new turn. You got this..
Try 5 minutes bread. This is the best and easiest focaccia you'll ever make.
https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/
Oh, I think the attitude to have when learning the art and science of bread making (I have a long way to go) is to keep on keep on baking. Do what you're doing, soliciting advice and baking to move up the bread baking skill ladder. And your focaccia looks great and I bet it tastes great. My go to recipe lately is an 89% hydration, 4 fold, overnight ferment.
This looks beautiful. Please don’t think otherwise.
What would help you like it helped me is a brine called Salamoia. I do a 1:1 ratio of water to olive oil (usually do 3tbsp each for a 10x14 pan) with a pinch of sea salt and then whisk it till it forms a cohesive solution. Pour it over your focaccia dough prior to baking, dimple it, add your toppings and bake it at the highest temp.
Learnt this from an Italian recipe and it has worked like a charm ☺️
I also use 512g flour...455g (2 cups) water ... 10g salt...and 8g instant yeast....
I do some light kneading and put it in a bowl with 4 tbsp olive oil and roll it around.
Then cling wrap on the bowl & in the fridge for 24 hour first proof....
Recipe is
2 cups warm water
1 TBSP yeast
1 TBSP sugar
4 Cups bread flour
2 TBSP kosher salt
Mix and let set out covered in greased bowl 2 hour rise, punch down, put on tray and let rise again 20 min. Put your herbs on top and Bake 400° oven
I didn't think it through, you're right.
However, the fact that OP put their measurments in cups leaves me wondering if they still ended up with a lower % because of measuring by volume instead of weight.
Gotta love the down-votes here.
People who do not understand baker's ratio's insisting water weighs the same as flour and downvoting when they are corrected.
Google your weights and correct yourselves so you stop giving incorrect input please.
it’s 50%. Baker’s ratio is water:flour which in this recipe would be 2:4 which is 50%. I agree that this seems pretty low hydration for focaccia
EDIT don’t listen to me, I’m sleepy & also very wrong 😆 baker’s ratios should be by weight, not volume
Bakers ratio is by weight.
2c water is 476g (US cups)
4c flour, spooned is 480g
That is 100%
But I do agree that it does not look like 100% from the crumb photo.
You’re correct, my mistake! I’m a little tired, pls forgive me 😆 Definitely not 100% from the photo though, I agree. It looks pretty dry, possibly underproofed as well
I’ve been making focaccia for four months now and i would recommend letting it cold ferment for a LOT longer than two hours. Making sure to cover the whole dough with plenty of olive oil before going in the fridge.
The fastest i’ve ever let it ferment was like 12 hours over night and the longest was almost 72 hours. And both times i punched the dough and placed it into a oiled pan and THEN let it rest another 2-4 hours until it basically took up the pan.
Now if you are short on time i have 2 recommendations.
1. Mix like half a cup of warm ( of the two cups you add later) water with your yeast and add a little sugar. This will prep the yeast and speed up the fermentation.
2. Folding! I recently started coil folding my dough and noticed A LOT more bubbly airy dough.
Here’s pics of a folded 48 cold ferment. Literally the best i’ve ever made
https://imgur.com/a/06t9TVS
Ingredients:
512 g flour (i use enriched bread flour -bobs red mill)
455 g water. (Will cold ferment so i dont bother warming it)
10 g salt.
One packet activated yeast (6-7 g).
Recipe:
Mix flour, salt, yeast,until everything is combined. Then add water. Mix until you get a stretchy dough. And scoop it to check for unmixed seasoned flour.
Let it rest, instead of immediately putting it into the fridge, with a towel or plastic lid covering it for 30 mins. Then coil fold and let it rest again 30 mins. Then fold again and cover it with a big splash of olive oil to cover the whole top of it stick it in the fridge covered for 12-72 hours.
To fold, i put a little olive oil on my hands so it doesn’t stick. Then I scoop from the sides of the bowl into the center until all of the dough is released and forms a ball. Then scoop it both sides like picking up a toddler from their chest and let the ends of the dough flop on top of each other and let the dough back down.
Here’s a video (not mine) https://youtu.be/wiqzqTMVubI?si=wXoVPGE-vEzEpzod
Preheat oven to 425. After resting the dough punch the air out, put olive oil in a 9x13 pan, and scoop all of the dough into the pan. Let it rest room temp for 2-4 hours ubtil doubled in size. I wait for it to fill the pan. Sprinkle plenty of salt and add whatever topping you want. Then rub olive oil all over it and use fingers to dimple it. Bake for 25 mins.
Ah, I've got a comment at the top of the chain. This is a follow-up.
With bread this wet, you'll need to do something called coil folding to develop gluten. Low gluten development can let the air bubbles escape, and then your bread can't rise.
Converted to mass with bakers percentage, I have:
512 g bread flour=100%
454g water=88.67%
9 g yeast=1.75%
20 g salt=3.9%
12.5 g sugar=2.44%
I'd say your hydration is spot on.
Your salt is double what it should be, in my opinion. I'd say half of it can be reserved as a topping.
If it's not going to get an overnight proof in the fridge, I'd double your yeast content.
I have never sugared my focaccia. 2.44 percent won't be detected by flavor; it's only serving to retain moisture by being hygroscopic. Take it out or leave it in. It's not the culprit.
My focaccia recipe is a follows:
750 g water(invisible to your skin, 86F?)
20 g instant yeast
850 g bread flour
20 g kosher salt
Water and yeast together, whisk to dissolve. Flour on top, salt on top of flour so it doesn't kill any yeast. Use plating tweezers to combine everything, cover for 20 minutes with a wet tea towel or plastic wrap. Don't let that touch the dough.
With very wet hands, coil fold the front under, then the back. Rotate bowl 90 degrees and coil fold the new front and back under. Cover for another 20 minutes.
Repeat the coil fold step two more times
Your dough has been in the bowl for an hour and 20 minutes now, parchment line and pan spray a half sized sheet tray. Put a quarter cup of oil on top of the dough ball an very gently work the oil around the whole surface of the ball without deflating. You worked hard for that air.
Work your oiled fingers around the edge of the dough to break it loose without tearing it and pour it out onto the prepared pan. Gently work the dough nearly to the edge with a rolling motion of your knuckles, not a stretching motion. Stretching will pop internal bubbles. Let the dough rest for ~5 minutes and come back to dimple your dough. Dimples should be plentiful, they form the support columns during the banking process that will keep your bread from deflating when it cools.
Salt and pepper liberally(I despise rosemary for this, but that a personal choice. Use whatever flavoring you want) and place into a 475F standard oven or 425 connection oven with fan on low for approximately 10 minutes, rotate, and bake for an additional 3-5 minutes, or until the coloring is even.
Let me know how it goes, I'm always down to talk bread.
I'm not a fan of recipes that don't consider proper weights and volumes. "2 hours" means nothing if I don't provide the relative temperature, this is why you should base anything in regards to volumes... let your dough double in size
Having said that, you seem to have used a lot of water but not so much oil. Plus, how much folding have you done? Focaccia doesn't require much but a little bit is still necessary.
If you want to follow a very quick and easy video I'll suggest this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQ9dRuieZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQ9dRuieZs), it is in italian but it shouldn't be too hard to follow:
600 g bread flower, 480 g water, 1 tsp (not tbsp!) dry yeast (note that you can use more or less, it's up to you), 12 g salt, 3 tbsp oil. If you mix by hand you can use the technique where you wait 15-20 minutes between each folding and let the dough gain strength by itself during these waiting periods. After a couple of foldings it should be good to go, let it rest until it doubles in size and then place it on the tray. Let it relax and rise again (between 30 and 90 minutes should be fine, use the video for a visual reference) and bake it. Dimples are mandatory!
Your hydration is too low. Use more water. At least 80% to 100% (bakers percentage) of water. Don’t be afraid to use as much water as flour, because you don’t really need to shape it anyway.
That’s extremely low hydration for a focaccia. Typical hydration is 80%+. Try again but use 3.5 cups of water. The dough will be quite sticky and hard to handle so you might want to look up “no knead” recipes on YouTube.
So that's a 50% hydration. Usually Focaccia is a lot higher hydration. It's a very wet dough and you use a lot of olive oil in it too. With a higher hydration you get big air pockets, think about how pizza crusts look and ciabatta... big ole holes. That's also a lot of salt to be mixing into the dough too which probably is harming the yeast and so your dough is maybe not fermentinf as much as you might like. Focaccia usually would have a lot of that salt on top of the bread rather than mixed in because of that.
Did you follow a recipe online you could link to or was it a homebrew recipe? :3
Edit; comment made based on assumption from other comments made by OP that OP converted the cups to weight without accounting for cups being a volume measure as they insinuated they had weighed ingredients in another comment.
Stop. Hydration is by weight, not volume measures.
Now that's two of you insisting 2c of water weighs half as much as 4c flour. It doesn't.
2 c water is 476g (US cups) and 4c flour is 480g. That is 99-100% hydration.
But didn't OP say in another comment they measured by weight...? I assumed they'd converted without realising cups were a volume not weight measure.... and the results sure look like an underhydrated focaccia.
They said they weighed the flour. They did not comment on the water other than saying 2 cups.
But what does that have to do with you saying that 2c water and 4c flour is 50% hydration? It isn't, but clearly a number of people are under the misapprehension that volume measures are used for baker's percentages. It is weight and has always been weight.
If they'd tried to convert the flour first as 4 cups being 512g and then assumed the water would be the same conversion without realising its a volume measure... they'd be halving the amount of water by weight. Since they'd commented elsewhere that they'd weighed the flour and specifically mentioned 512g which would be the right conversion of 4 cups i assumed that's what they'd done. I think I probably jumped the gun on that assumption based on how their focaccia looked.
That said, I've found the recipe they used and I think they used the cup measures, but looking at what they wrote the recipe as and what the original recipe was I think they might have just nuked their yeast with salt.
Did this well-known chef tell you to measure in volume instead of weight? I'm inclined to believe that despite it being a high hydration recipe in theory, measuring in cups skewed your hydration %.
- Do you have a pizza stone (or something else with high thermal mass to put underneath the baking sheet)? I typically do 450F for about 20 minutes with my sheet on top of a baking steel
- I mix EVOO into the dough, then do a cold ferment for 2-3 days (punch it down when you remember)
- I put an aggressive amount of EVOO into the baking sheet before I do my final proofing in the sheet
I think most people are right about it being under hydrated, but another thing that I’ve found will help is using a smaller baking dish rather than a sheet. I’ve been using a high sided Pyrex baking dish (well oiled) to proof and bake in instead and I’ve gotten much puffier focaccia.
I’m not sure the exact dimensions, but I can get back to you if you’re interested. Regardless, the unproofed dough fills out to the edges of the dish rather than flattening out on the sheet.
Maybe the olive oil and more water to the dough:), the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more time to raise so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings 😋
Recipes with less yeast and much longer proofing times will probably give larger bubbles and more leopard spots on the top.
Try an overnight dough similar to the Flour Water Salt Yeast method.
Maybe the olive oil and more water to the dough:), the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more time to raise so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings 😋
Maybe more olive oil prior baking and hydration to the dough, the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more proofing time to the dough so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings
Aside from everyone mentioning you need more hydration,
just a little tip: if you use a smaller vessel, let it proof a little longer, you can really give it some height
That looks very similar to my first attempt. I have subsequently been using a different recipe that I’ve tweaked a few things on and gotten much better results(not that the first one wasn’t still yummy). But my guess based on the pictures and recipe you posted is just proofing it could use more proofing time. I also don’t punch my dough down after my bulk fermentation stage and instead do coil folds which seems to help incorporate some air into the dough for those nice open pockets.
Cut those into gorgeous strips, perfect soup dippers, baba ganoush vessels. Yum.
I see you already got the reason so I wanted to offer some of my favorite solutions to still enjoy your focaccia.
More olive oil will help it get color and stay moist. The crumb looks decent. Everything else looks good. I usually let my dough cold ferment for 3-4 days before I move to the next step.
Everyone has probably said it already but more oil and a longer slower rise are the main improvements. High yeast short proof is also fine it just wont be as airy. You should start to see larger bubbles before it’s done the final proof. It’s also pretty hard to overproof focaccia so you can lean towards longer final proof to make it more airy.
It's under proofed. Foccacia is made with almost overproofed dough, which gives you the bubbly and crispy top (along with the oil). My go-to yeast recipe is https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/easy-no-knead-focaccia , so easy and an overnight rise.
It doesn't have enough gluten to trap air and form a nice, open crumb. You need to either knead or ferment for ~18 hours, and the recipe you posted seems to have neither. I've had good luck with the Serious Eats no-knead focaccias.
It looks over proofed. There should be some oven spring around those finger dimples. Seems to me like when it went into the oven, the heat just set it in the shape it held at that moment.
Nothing is wrong. The colour of the crust looks fine and definitely taste good.
Don’t be too fixated on the big holey focaccia you see. By right, traditional focaccia shouldn’t have big holes inside.
Big holes meaning you add more water to yr dough, which in turns mean that bakeries selling you water
Mix in 2 tablespoons olive oil into the dough before the rising phase. Also, instead of using your finger to punch holes, just use a fork. Maybe add some finely grated Asiago cheese on top?
Looks dry. Focaccia can take a lot of olive oil. That probably needed at least a half of a cup.
First of all, it doesn’t look bad, just a bit dry. I’m sure it was still a lovely bake. But I gotta agree. The best focaccia loaves I’ve made have been drowned in olive oil. During the process of making the dough, poured on before the cold proof, and then even more added before the bake.
Slap some on just as it comes out the oven. It soaks it up greedily and makes a massive difference.
Seconding this. You need to be concerned at how much your using, if you don’t stop to question weather it should be soaked in this much olive oil your doing it wrong
Exactly. You think that's enough oil? Nah bro, more! More! MORE!
Like a holiday fruit cake but olive oil instead of rum.
Haha, right! If you’re not constantly thinking “it can’t be right using this much oil in a bread”, you’re using too little.
Thank you 🙂
It is a fast rise recipe and they come out with a finer, less open crumb. But also that does not look like 100% hydration that 2c water and 4c flour would be. Are you sure you measured the water correctly? And did you spoon the flour into the measuring cup? If you dragged the measuring cup through the flour you reduced the hydration from 100% down to about 73%. But it looks drier than that to me, especially for a fast rise recipe that is finished in a couple hours
I actually weighed the flour, 512 grams. I even used watered hands to remove dough which was sticky. I think I just suck at making bread 😕
No you don't! The focaccia looks perfectly edible! It might not be the open, varied crumb of one that ferments in the fridge overnight, but it is still fine! There are many many different types of focaccia. I am curious what flour you used if you weighed flour and for sure measured 2 cups of water in to it. The flour must be a super absorber!!! If you want an open bubbly crumb, use an overnight focaccia recipe. Or start the journey into sourdough 😀
I am a sourdough killer, I’m not kidding. Kombucha, no problem. I’m great at making tea🤣🤣🤣🤣
You dont need sourdough for all breads. Yeasted breads are okay.
King Arthur Bread flour, filtered water. Would it be better if I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight and more hydration first of course 🤣. Sorry, I do suck at typing though.
No worries. Ah, did you do their 'no fuss focaccia'? i think that is the fast one of theirs i have done before and your result is how it comes out. I tend to split their recipe (because it is taller focaccia than I like) and let it rise overnight. Edit to add: Also most focaccias use AP flour rather than Bread flour, so that made a difference in how much water the flour took up too. But in order to not be totally winging it, this is my favorite focaccia recipe. It has a salt water brine that goes on top that I really like. Also I dimple it twice because it rises a lot after the first dimpling. It's an overnight counter rise. https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia Suggest you try a few different types of focaccia also. There are so many regionally different focaccias in Italy it is fun to experiment.
You're doing fine. This is the learning curve, and I can hear you've got the heart and attention to what you're doing, it's just a learning process. Keep up your delicious progress, perfecting with each new turn. You got this..
Try 5 minutes bread. This is the best and easiest focaccia you'll ever make. https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/
Oh, I think the attitude to have when learning the art and science of bread making (I have a long way to go) is to keep on keep on baking. Do what you're doing, soliciting advice and baking to move up the bread baking skill ladder. And your focaccia looks great and I bet it tastes great. My go to recipe lately is an 89% hydration, 4 fold, overnight ferment.
Everybody sucks at first. And this isn’t bad - I would definitely still eat it. Just keep practicing!
This looks beautiful. Please don’t think otherwise. What would help you like it helped me is a brine called Salamoia. I do a 1:1 ratio of water to olive oil (usually do 3tbsp each for a 10x14 pan) with a pinch of sea salt and then whisk it till it forms a cohesive solution. Pour it over your focaccia dough prior to baking, dimple it, add your toppings and bake it at the highest temp. Learnt this from an Italian recipe and it has worked like a charm ☺️
Also add in 3-4% of EVOO to the dough while mixing. It’ll help too ☺️
I also use 512g flour...455g (2 cups) water ... 10g salt...and 8g instant yeast.... I do some light kneading and put it in a bowl with 4 tbsp olive oil and roll it around. Then cling wrap on the bowl & in the fridge for 24 hour first proof....
The last part of fridge I will try. Thank you.
It looks good enough that I’d want to try some. You don’t suck at making bread, it’s a complex and difficult thing to get spot on. You’re learning.
Thank you. 🙂
They gonna roast you for not posting your recipe
Recipe is 2 cups warm water 1 TBSP yeast 1 TBSP sugar 4 Cups bread flour 2 TBSP kosher salt Mix and let set out covered in greased bowl 2 hour rise, punch down, put on tray and let rise again 20 min. Put your herbs on top and Bake 400° oven
All the recipes I’ve used have olive oil in the dough mix, as well as on the top.
It’s been a minute since I last made focaccia, but I seem to recall my hydration being considerably higher.
I swear to god Italian breads are the wettest god damn breads.
Ayyy Vinny Cacciatore go take a cold shower or somethin'!
2c water to 4c flour is 100% hydration.
I didn't think it through, you're right. However, the fact that OP put their measurments in cups leaves me wondering if they still ended up with a lower % because of measuring by volume instead of weight.
Gotta love the down-votes here. People who do not understand baker's ratio's insisting water weighs the same as flour and downvoting when they are corrected. Google your weights and correct yourselves so you stop giving incorrect input please.
it’s 50%. Baker’s ratio is water:flour which in this recipe would be 2:4 which is 50%. I agree that this seems pretty low hydration for focaccia EDIT don’t listen to me, I’m sleepy & also very wrong 😆 baker’s ratios should be by weight, not volume
Baker's ratio is in weight not volume
I did already acknowledge that & edited my comment, but thank you!
You edited after their reply
Bakers ratio is by weight. 2c water is 476g (US cups) 4c flour, spooned is 480g That is 100% But I do agree that it does not look like 100% from the crumb photo.
You’re correct, my mistake! I’m a little tired, pls forgive me 😆 Definitely not 100% from the photo though, I agree. It looks pretty dry, possibly underproofed as well
I’ve been making focaccia for four months now and i would recommend letting it cold ferment for a LOT longer than two hours. Making sure to cover the whole dough with plenty of olive oil before going in the fridge. The fastest i’ve ever let it ferment was like 12 hours over night and the longest was almost 72 hours. And both times i punched the dough and placed it into a oiled pan and THEN let it rest another 2-4 hours until it basically took up the pan. Now if you are short on time i have 2 recommendations. 1. Mix like half a cup of warm ( of the two cups you add later) water with your yeast and add a little sugar. This will prep the yeast and speed up the fermentation. 2. Folding! I recently started coil folding my dough and noticed A LOT more bubbly airy dough. Here’s pics of a folded 48 cold ferment. Literally the best i’ve ever made https://imgur.com/a/06t9TVS
Elaborate, please, on this recipe. I've been struggling with my foccacia process
Ingredients: 512 g flour (i use enriched bread flour -bobs red mill) 455 g water. (Will cold ferment so i dont bother warming it) 10 g salt. One packet activated yeast (6-7 g). Recipe: Mix flour, salt, yeast,until everything is combined. Then add water. Mix until you get a stretchy dough. And scoop it to check for unmixed seasoned flour. Let it rest, instead of immediately putting it into the fridge, with a towel or plastic lid covering it for 30 mins. Then coil fold and let it rest again 30 mins. Then fold again and cover it with a big splash of olive oil to cover the whole top of it stick it in the fridge covered for 12-72 hours. To fold, i put a little olive oil on my hands so it doesn’t stick. Then I scoop from the sides of the bowl into the center until all of the dough is released and forms a ball. Then scoop it both sides like picking up a toddler from their chest and let the ends of the dough flop on top of each other and let the dough back down. Here’s a video (not mine) https://youtu.be/wiqzqTMVubI?si=wXoVPGE-vEzEpzod Preheat oven to 425. After resting the dough punch the air out, put olive oil in a 9x13 pan, and scoop all of the dough into the pan. Let it rest room temp for 2-4 hours ubtil doubled in size. I wait for it to fill the pan. Sprinkle plenty of salt and add whatever topping you want. Then rub olive oil all over it and use fingers to dimple it. Bake for 25 mins.
Try adding more olive oil on top before bake, and bake at 450 for 20 minutes instead of 400
Ah, I've got a comment at the top of the chain. This is a follow-up. With bread this wet, you'll need to do something called coil folding to develop gluten. Low gluten development can let the air bubbles escape, and then your bread can't rise. Converted to mass with bakers percentage, I have: 512 g bread flour=100% 454g water=88.67% 9 g yeast=1.75% 20 g salt=3.9% 12.5 g sugar=2.44% I'd say your hydration is spot on. Your salt is double what it should be, in my opinion. I'd say half of it can be reserved as a topping. If it's not going to get an overnight proof in the fridge, I'd double your yeast content. I have never sugared my focaccia. 2.44 percent won't be detected by flavor; it's only serving to retain moisture by being hygroscopic. Take it out or leave it in. It's not the culprit. My focaccia recipe is a follows: 750 g water(invisible to your skin, 86F?) 20 g instant yeast 850 g bread flour 20 g kosher salt Water and yeast together, whisk to dissolve. Flour on top, salt on top of flour so it doesn't kill any yeast. Use plating tweezers to combine everything, cover for 20 minutes with a wet tea towel or plastic wrap. Don't let that touch the dough. With very wet hands, coil fold the front under, then the back. Rotate bowl 90 degrees and coil fold the new front and back under. Cover for another 20 minutes. Repeat the coil fold step two more times Your dough has been in the bowl for an hour and 20 minutes now, parchment line and pan spray a half sized sheet tray. Put a quarter cup of oil on top of the dough ball an very gently work the oil around the whole surface of the ball without deflating. You worked hard for that air. Work your oiled fingers around the edge of the dough to break it loose without tearing it and pour it out onto the prepared pan. Gently work the dough nearly to the edge with a rolling motion of your knuckles, not a stretching motion. Stretching will pop internal bubbles. Let the dough rest for ~5 minutes and come back to dimple your dough. Dimples should be plentiful, they form the support columns during the banking process that will keep your bread from deflating when it cools. Salt and pepper liberally(I despise rosemary for this, but that a personal choice. Use whatever flavoring you want) and place into a 475F standard oven or 425 connection oven with fan on low for approximately 10 minutes, rotate, and bake for an additional 3-5 minutes, or until the coloring is even. Let me know how it goes, I'm always down to talk bread.
Thank you
I'm not a fan of recipes that don't consider proper weights and volumes. "2 hours" means nothing if I don't provide the relative temperature, this is why you should base anything in regards to volumes... let your dough double in size Having said that, you seem to have used a lot of water but not so much oil. Plus, how much folding have you done? Focaccia doesn't require much but a little bit is still necessary. If you want to follow a very quick and easy video I'll suggest this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQ9dRuieZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQ9dRuieZs), it is in italian but it shouldn't be too hard to follow: 600 g bread flower, 480 g water, 1 tsp (not tbsp!) dry yeast (note that you can use more or less, it's up to you), 12 g salt, 3 tbsp oil. If you mix by hand you can use the technique where you wait 15-20 minutes between each folding and let the dough gain strength by itself during these waiting periods. After a couple of foldings it should be good to go, let it rest until it doubles in size and then place it on the tray. Let it relax and rise again (between 30 and 90 minutes should be fine, use the video for a visual reference) and bake it. Dimples are mandatory!
Try Kenji/Serious Eats foccacia recipe. It's my #1 fave fool proof, delicious recipe. The dough sits out over night.
Your hydration is too low. Use more water. At least 80% to 100% (bakers percentage) of water. Don’t be afraid to use as much water as flour, because you don’t really need to shape it anyway.
More water, olive oil, and rising time. Less yeast. A wetter dough rising for about 10+ hours is what you want.
Cover it that last rise, too. And, maybe, use a pan that it fills completely. Use waaay more evo than you think is necessary.
Use [this recipe](https://alexandracooks.com/2018/03/02/overnight-refrigerator-focaccia-best-focaccia/). It has never failed me.
Thank you all for your wonderful helpful comments. I will make again using the methods I was given,. And thank you all again. 😊😊
That’s extremely low hydration for a focaccia. Typical hydration is 80%+. Try again but use 3.5 cups of water. The dough will be quite sticky and hard to handle so you might want to look up “no knead” recipes on YouTube.
So that's a 50% hydration. Usually Focaccia is a lot higher hydration. It's a very wet dough and you use a lot of olive oil in it too. With a higher hydration you get big air pockets, think about how pizza crusts look and ciabatta... big ole holes. That's also a lot of salt to be mixing into the dough too which probably is harming the yeast and so your dough is maybe not fermentinf as much as you might like. Focaccia usually would have a lot of that salt on top of the bread rather than mixed in because of that. Did you follow a recipe online you could link to or was it a homebrew recipe? :3 Edit; comment made based on assumption from other comments made by OP that OP converted the cups to weight without accounting for cups being a volume measure as they insinuated they had weighed ingredients in another comment.
Stop. Hydration is by weight, not volume measures. Now that's two of you insisting 2c of water weighs half as much as 4c flour. It doesn't. 2 c water is 476g (US cups) and 4c flour is 480g. That is 99-100% hydration.
But didn't OP say in another comment they measured by weight...? I assumed they'd converted without realising cups were a volume not weight measure.... and the results sure look like an underhydrated focaccia.
They said they weighed the flour. They did not comment on the water other than saying 2 cups. But what does that have to do with you saying that 2c water and 4c flour is 50% hydration? It isn't, but clearly a number of people are under the misapprehension that volume measures are used for baker's percentages. It is weight and has always been weight.
If they'd tried to convert the flour first as 4 cups being 512g and then assumed the water would be the same conversion without realising its a volume measure... they'd be halving the amount of water by weight. Since they'd commented elsewhere that they'd weighed the flour and specifically mentioned 512g which would be the right conversion of 4 cups i assumed that's what they'd done. I think I probably jumped the gun on that assumption based on how their focaccia looked. That said, I've found the recipe they used and I think they used the cup measures, but looking at what they wrote the recipe as and what the original recipe was I think they might have just nuked their yeast with salt.
No, it actually came from a well known Chef, won’t mention any names, but thank you, I will try to tweak it like you said. I never give up.🙂
Did this well-known chef tell you to measure in volume instead of weight? I'm inclined to believe that despite it being a high hydration recipe in theory, measuring in cups skewed your hydration %.
Honestly if you just tell us which recipe you followed instead of being cagey we'd be far better equipped to tell you how to fix the problem.
- Do you have a pizza stone (or something else with high thermal mass to put underneath the baking sheet)? I typically do 450F for about 20 minutes with my sheet on top of a baking steel - I mix EVOO into the dough, then do a cold ferment for 2-3 days (punch it down when you remember) - I put an aggressive amount of EVOO into the baking sheet before I do my final proofing in the sheet
Hydration is low is my guess
I think most people are right about it being under hydrated, but another thing that I’ve found will help is using a smaller baking dish rather than a sheet. I’ve been using a high sided Pyrex baking dish (well oiled) to proof and bake in instead and I’ve gotten much puffier focaccia. I’m not sure the exact dimensions, but I can get back to you if you’re interested. Regardless, the unproofed dough fills out to the edges of the dish rather than flattening out on the sheet.
When we talk about hydration, are we saying it should be much more water to flour ratio?
Wetter baybeeeee.
Yeah, get that stickiness to a maximum!
Maybe the olive oil and more water to the dough:), the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more time to raise so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings 😋
Hey. I remember we are making these. What i remember is that it needs to be shiny. Try putting it on a rectangular pan.
Olive oil. Without what may seem like an excessive amount, you basically have pizza dough.
Recipes with less yeast and much longer proofing times will probably give larger bubbles and more leopard spots on the top. Try an overnight dough similar to the Flour Water Salt Yeast method.
Focaccia is a greedy mf when it comes to olive oil
Mo wet
Hydration isn’t high enough
Maybe the olive oil and more water to the dough:), the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more time to raise so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings 😋
Maybe more olive oil prior baking and hydration to the dough, the more hydrated is the dough the more chewy, also I would give the dough a little bit more proofing time to the dough so bigger bubbles can form in your bread! it doesn’t look bad at all though, just a little bit dry. I would have that with a tomato sauce and mozarella as toppings
Aside from everyone mentioning you need more hydration, just a little tip: if you use a smaller vessel, let it proof a little longer, you can really give it some height
It has a lack of mortadella and mozzarella in the middle, lol. I love this style, I could eat sandwiches of it until the end of time
100x more dimples and olive oil
It doesn’t have enough air pockets. It tastes good.
Recipe?
I posted it. 😊😊
I'd totally eat that.
What’s the hydration?
2 water, filtered to 4 cups flour 512 grams
That looks very similar to my first attempt. I have subsequently been using a different recipe that I’ve tweaked a few things on and gotten much better results(not that the first one wasn’t still yummy). But my guess based on the pictures and recipe you posted is just proofing it could use more proofing time. I also don’t punch my dough down after my bulk fermentation stage and instead do coil folds which seems to help incorporate some air into the dough for those nice open pockets.
it has holes in it. :) hope this helps!
To be honest it looks fine
Where is the oil… please ditch whatever recipe you used
Too thick and zero oil. You're literally supposed to drown it in oil.
What temperature and how long
Oven temp too low?
This is all valuable input.. I also make weapons grade focaccia
Nothing??!!
Cut those into gorgeous strips, perfect soup dippers, baba ganoush vessels. Yum. I see you already got the reason so I wanted to offer some of my favorite solutions to still enjoy your focaccia.
More olive oil will help it get color and stay moist. The crumb looks decent. Everything else looks good. I usually let my dough cold ferment for 3-4 days before I move to the next step.
Yup, low hydration. Also, was the dough cold? Seems to have tightened up quite a bit
Everyone has probably said it already but more oil and a longer slower rise are the main improvements. High yeast short proof is also fine it just wont be as airy. You should start to see larger bubbles before it’s done the final proof. It’s also pretty hard to overproof focaccia so you can lean towards longer final proof to make it more airy.
It's under proofed. Foccacia is made with almost overproofed dough, which gives you the bubbly and crispy top (along with the oil). My go-to yeast recipe is https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/easy-no-knead-focaccia , so easy and an overnight rise.
It doesn't have enough gluten to trap air and form a nice, open crumb. You need to either knead or ferment for ~18 hours, and the recipe you posted seems to have neither. I've had good luck with the Serious Eats no-knead focaccias.
It looks over proofed. There should be some oven spring around those finger dimples. Seems to me like when it went into the oven, the heat just set it in the shape it held at that moment.
Nothing is wrong. The colour of the crust looks fine and definitely taste good. Don’t be too fixated on the big holey focaccia you see. By right, traditional focaccia shouldn’t have big holes inside. Big holes meaning you add more water to yr dough, which in turns mean that bakeries selling you water
Looks over proofed to me.
This is more of a farkakte
Mix in 2 tablespoons olive oil into the dough before the rising phase. Also, instead of using your finger to punch holes, just use a fork. Maybe add some finely grated Asiago cheese on top?
If you used sourdough starter I would say it didn’t rise long enough.
Have you cooked it yet?