The Ultimate Homemade Focaccia

24-Hour Homemade Focaccia

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The Ultimate Homemade Focaccia topped with rosemary and flaky sea salt. Crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, a.k.a. irresistibly delicious. Serve it alongside salads, soups, or pasta – or slice it in half to make a tasty focaccia sandwich. Or just… Eat it on its own; it’s THAT good.

Table of contents

Focaccia made with One Gram Yeast

This focaccia includes a long fridge rest, which yields an extra flavorful, light, and crispy focaccia. In other words, there is some waiting involved in making this. But I promise you it’s worth it. All you need is flour, water, salt, olive oil, and a tiny bit of instant dry yeast – yes, just one gram.

To help plan out your bake, I have included a baker’s schedule at the end of this post. Make sure to check that out before you start baking.

Recipe run through 

Day one

Start with the dough

1. Measure ingredients – Add flour, instant dry yeast, and water to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. If you’re not used to working with high hydration dough, I recommend starting with the minimum amount of water recommended. Also, please keep in mind this dough is supposed to be wet and sticky – so don’t freak out if it seems a little uncontrollable at first.
   
2. Mix it up – Turn the mixer on low and knead until it forms a very shaggy, sticky dough and is just combined; this step shouldn’t take longer than a minute or so. Cover the bowl and let the dough autolyse/rest for 30 minutes.
   
3. Add salt and oil – After the 30-minute rest, add salt and olive oil to the dough. Start your mixer and, on low speed, knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough comes together and is beginning to let go of the sides of the bowl.
   
4. First proof and coil folds – Grease a large baking bowl with olive oil. Transfer your kneaded dough into the greased baking bowl and place it in a warm spot (ideally at 75°F/24°C) for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, you want to perform the first coil fold. Then, place the dough back to proof for another 45 minutes, then perform the second and final coil fold. Next, leave your dough to proof for another 1-2 hours before transferring it to the fridge for 24 hours (up to 48 hours). In total, we are doing two sets of coil folds, and the first proof lasts for 2.5-3.5 hours. I typically aim for a 60% rise before transferring my focaccia dough to the fridge.

Day two

Final proof

5. Remove dough from the fridge – Take the dough out of the fridge and dump it in an oiled non-stick baking pan (9×13 inches/23x33cm). If your pan is not non-stick, line the pan with parchment paper, and pour oil on top of the paper so that the dough doesn’t stick to the paper while you’re stretching it out.
   
6. Stretch the dough to even it out – Gently stretch the dough to flatten it out in the pan. It doesn’t matter if the dough isn’t covering the whole pan yet, as long as it’s somewhat even throughout.
   
7. Final proof – Cover the baking pan and proof at 75°F/24°C until approximately doubled in size. The dough should jiggle if you shake the pan. The final proof typically takes 1-2 hours, but look less on the clock and more on how the dough looks.

Assemble and bake the focaccia

8. Preheat your oven to 430°F/220°C 30-45 minutes before you plan to bake the focaccia.
   
9. When the focaccia has doubled in size: drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over the doughs’ surface. Use your fingers to poke dents all over the dough. Sprinkle fresh rosemary and flaky salt on top.
   
10. Bake for 18-25 minutes, until deep golden brown. Remove from the oven, drizzle with additional olive oil and let it cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

How To Do A Coil Fold

Folding the dough helps develop the gluten network, and we do it to build a strong dough that can hold its shape and rise tall in the oven. With wet hands, slide both hands under the dough and slowly lift while pulling the dough towards you, then bring your hands slightly forward, letting the dough coil underneath itself on the way down. Repeat on all four sides. We are performing two sets of coil folds in this recipe – separated by 45 minutes in the first 1.5 hours of proofing.

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