The bread that taught us patience pays off. A pillowy, olive-oil-soaked focaccia with a crackling base, dimpled top, and whatever the garden is giving you that week — cherry tomatoes, rosemary, olives, soft onions.
Focaccia is the easiest impressive bread you can make. There's no shaping, no scoring, no banneton — you mix a wet dough, oil it generously, dimple it with your fingertips, and bake it on a tray. The window for getting it wrong is small. The reward, when you cut into a slab still warm enough to fog the cutting board, is large.
This is our weekend recipe. We make it Friday night with a long cold proof and bake it Saturday for lunch with whatever the garden gives us in spring or whatever's in the crisper drawer in winter.
What you'll need
One half-sheet pan (33×23 cm) · 8 generous servings
- 500 g (4 cups) bread flour or strong all-purpose flour
- 10 g (1¾ tsp) fine sea salt
- 5 g (1¼ tsp) instant yeast
- 400 g (1⅔ cups) lukewarm water
- 30 g (2 tbsp) extra-virgin olive oil, plus 80 g (⅓ cup) more for the pan and finishing
- Toppings: 150 g cherry tomatoes, halved · 2 sprigs fresh rosemary · 50 g olives, pitted · flaky sea salt · cracked black pepper
Flour notes
Canadian bakers using Robin Hood, Five Roses, or No Name AP (≈13% protein) — your AP is essentially European bread flour and works perfectly. Use it straight.
US bakers using King Arthur, Gold Medal, or Bob's Red Mill AP (10.5–11.5%) — use bread flour for focaccia. The high hydration in this recipe needs the extra protein to hold structure.
Olive oil note: use the best one you have. Focaccia is mostly bread, water, and oil — the oil is half the flavour. A bottle of decent grocery-store extra-virgin (Tre Stelle, Costco's Kirkland Italian Organic) is fine; a serious finishing oil is exceptional.
The method
Mix · 5 minutes hands-on
In a large bowl, whisk flour, salt, and yeast. Add water and 30 g of olive oil. Mix with a wet hand or wooden spoon until no dry streaks remain. The dough will be sticky and shaggy — that's correct. Cover with a lid or shower cap.
Stretch and folds · 30 minutes
Wait 30 minutes. Wet your hand, reach under one side of the dough, lift it up over the top, and tuck. Rotate the bowl a quarter-turn and repeat. Four folds total. Cover.
Cold proof · 18 to 24 hours
Slide the covered bowl into the fridge for at least 18 hours, up to 24. The cold proof develops the airy, holey crumb and the deep yeasty flavour that makes great focaccia great.
Pan and second proof · 2 hours
Generously oil a half-sheet pan with 50 g of olive oil — really coat the entire surface, sides included. Take the cold dough out and tip it onto the pan. Don't punch it down. Let it warm and relax, untouched, for 1 hour. Then gently stretch it to fill the pan corners. Cover loosely. Rest another hour at room temperature until softly puffy.
Dimple and top · 5 minutes
Pour the remaining 30 g of olive oil over the top of the dough. Press your fingertips straight down into the dough, all the way to the pan, to make deep dimples across the entire surface. Press the cherry tomato halves and olives into the dimples. Tuck rosemary sprigs in. Sprinkle generously with flaky salt.
Bake · 22 to 25 minutes
Preheat oven to 230°C / 450°F. Bake until the focaccia is deeply golden — the edges should be almost amber, the bottom crisp. Don't take it out at the first golden moment; let it go the extra 3 to 4 minutes for the crackle.
Cool 10 minutes, then eat
Slide the focaccia onto a cooling rack. Wait 10 minutes. Cut into squares with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. Eat warm. There's no good reason not to.
Climate notes
Cold winter kitchens (under 20°C): the second-rise on the pan will take longer than 2 hours — closer to 3. A turned-off oven with the light on works perfectly. The cold proof in the fridge is unaffected by kitchen temperature.
Humid summer kitchens (above 26°C): the dough will move fast. Check at the 90-minute mark of the room-temperature proof; if it looks doubled and softly domed, dimple and bake.
The make-ahead window: the cold proof can stretch from 18 to 36 hours without quality loss. Past 36 hours, flavour starts getting too sour for most palates. Plan a Saturday focaccia by mixing Thursday night.
Variations
- Classic rosemary and salt. Skip the tomatoes and olives. Use only flaky salt, rosemary, and a generous drizzle of olive oil after baking. The original. Often the best.
- Sweet onion and thyme. Top with thinly sliced sweet onion (Vidalia, Walla Walla) tossed in olive oil and fresh thyme. The onion caramelizes during the bake.
- Garlic confit and grana. Press 8 to 10 cloves of confit garlic into the dimples. Sprinkle with finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano during the last 5 minutes of baking.
- Garden art focaccia. The Pinterest version. Use thin slices of red onion as flower stems, halved cherry tomatoes as petals, herbs as leaves. Photograph for the family chat. Eat anyway.
Storage
Focaccia is best the day it's baked. Within 4 hours of coming out of the oven, it's at its absolute peak — crackling base, soft springy interior, glossy top.
After day one, the texture changes. Wrap leftover focaccia loosely in a clean tea towel or breathable linen bag and store at room temperature. Day two: still good, but reheat 5 minutes in a 180°C oven to revive the crust. Day three: cube it and turn it into bread salad or croutons.
Freezing works: cool fully, slice into pieces, freeze in a freezer bag with parchment between slices. Reheat directly from frozen in a 180°C oven for 10 minutes.
Common questions
Why is my focaccia flat and dense?
Two likely reasons. Either you skipped or shortened the cold proof — that 18+ hours is what builds the airy crumb. Or you didn't dimple the dough deeply enough. Press all the way to the pan with your fingers; shallow dimples spring back and the top stays flat.
Can I make focaccia same-day?
You can, but it won't be as good. Mix the dough, do the stretch-and-folds, then bulk ferment at room temperature 4 to 5 hours instead of cold-proofing. Pan, dimple, top, and bake. The flavour is shallower and the crumb is tighter, but it's still focaccia and it'll still vanish at lunch.
What size pan should I use?
A standard half-sheet pan (33×23 cm or 13×9 inches) gives you focaccia about 2 cm thick — the right balance of soft crumb and crackling base. A quarter-sheet (23×33) gives a thicker, breadier focaccia. Avoid glass; metal conducts heat better and gives you a crispier base.
How much oil is too much?
There's almost no upper limit on focaccia oil. Italian bakers in Liguria use stunning amounts. The recipe here uses about 110 g total (oil in dough + pan + finishing). If you want a slick, crisper base, push to 130 g. The bread absorbs what it needs and the rest pools beautifully into the dimples.