Wonderfully fluffy focaccia with beautiful air bubbles through out make it light and easy to eat. The sourdough and the poolish not only give the focaccia lots of bubbles for a good structure but rich flavors and aroma. It takes three days to make the focaccia but well worth the effort!
Ingredients:
Sourdough: (1:3:3 ratio for 100 hydration)
- 30 grams sourdough
- 120 grams whole wheat flour or all purpose flour
- 120 grams water
Poolish:
- 5 grams bakers yeast
- 120 grams all purpose flour
- 120 grams warm water
Focaccia: (85% hydration)
- 600 grams all purpose flour
- 475 grams water
- 60 grams olive oil
- 15 grams salt
- Toppings: anything you like! The focaccia in the photo has sun-dried tomatoes, olives., garlic and Himalayan pink salt
Prepare sourdough and poolish - Day 1
- Add the whole wheat or all purpose flour to active sourdough and let it ferment until it is at least double in size (4-6 hours or overnight)
- Also prepare the poolish by mixing the yeast with warm water in a container with a lid. Then add in the flour and mix thoroughly. Let the poolish rise in the covered container or an hour in room temperature and move it to the fridge to ferment overnight.
Focaccia dough - Day 2
- In the morning take the poolish out of the fridge to start the focaccia dough preparation
- In a large bowl add the flour, the sourdough, the poolish and water and start to combine. Once the dough starts to come together add in the olive oil and salt and then combine well. The dough should be very shaggy and wet at this point.
- Next cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough rest for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes remove the towel and stretch and fold the dough, by lightly pulling on on corner of the dough and folding it on top of the rest of the dough, do this to all four sides.
- Cover the dough again and let it rest for another 20 minutes and then stretch and fold again. And then repeat this one more time. (Total of 3 stretch and folds)
- After the third fold, the dough should have more strength and less sticky.
- Next, move the focaccia dough into a sealed container and let it ferment overnight in the fridge.
Baking the focaccia - Day 3
- Take the focaccia dough out of the fridge and let it rest in room temperature for two hours.
- The dough should be very bubbly after two hours, then move the dough onto a baking pan oiled with olive oil. (Any square or rectangular flat pan will be good. If necessary divide the dough into two portions to fit the pans.)
- Flatten the dough in the pan by gently pushing down with your fingers. The dough should have some resistance so cover the dough and let it rest of 15 minutes.
- After resting, gently push down onto the dough with your fingers, oil your finger if necessary to prevent dough from sticking.
- Repeat the resting one more time to make sure the dough is relaxed and spread out to all four corners of the pan.
- Prepare the brine for the shaping by dissolving salt into water.
- Sprinkle the toppings on top of the dough, and drizzle olive oil evenly over the dough.
- Dip your fingers into the brine to finally shape the focaccia by creating dimples in the dough.
- Then let the focaccia rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Heat the oven to 450F.
- Bake the focaccia for 15 minutes and then turn it around for an even bake. Bake for another 15 minutes or until it is golden brown.
- Cool on a rack. And the cut and serve.
