Tomato And Olive Focaccia
Tomato and olive focaccia - This delicious focaccia bread is soft, tender, chewy and full of flavour. It is easy to make and is great as a side dish, served with dips or for making sandwiches. Naturally vegan/dairy-free.
Servings 1 loaf
Ingredients
Dough:
- 320 g (1 + ⅓ cup) cool water
- 500 g (4 ¼ cups) white bread flour
- 7 g (2 ¼ teaspoons) instant yeast
- 50 g (¼ cup) olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
- 10 g (2 tsp) fine salt
Toppings:
- 100 g (3 ½ oz) olives sliced
- 175 g (6 oz) cherry tomatoes halved
- a few sprigs fresh rosemary and thyme, leaves only
- a couple of pinches dried oregano
- extra virgin olive oil
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Place the water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the flour and yeast and mix on a low speed for about 4 minutes, until it forms a dough.
- With the mixer running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Keep mixing at a low speed for about 7 minutes. The dough will slide around at first and it will take a while to absorb all of the oil but it will get there eventually.
- Turn the speed up to medium for about 3 minutes, then add the salt. Continue to mix on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. It will be quite a sticky dough but should be smooth and stretchy. Don't be tempted to add more flour.
- Turn the dough out onto an unfloured surface and use a dough scraper to skim it across the surface, this will shape it into a ball with a shiny top. This technique can't really be explained well in writing, so I recommend buying Bertinet's course to learn properly! If in doubt, just use oiled hands to shape the dough into a ball.
- Lightly oil a bowl and rub a little oil over the surface of the dough. Place the dough in the bowl, cover and set aside to rise for 1 ½ - 2 hours, until about doubled in size and full of big air bubbles.
- Use a dough scraper to release the risen dough from the bowl onto an oiled surface. Use oiled hands to gently stretch it out into a rough rectangle. Flip the dough over onto an oiled approx 23 x 33 cm / 9 x 13 in baking/roasting tin.
- Scatter over the sliced olives and arrange the halved tomatoes cut side up. Scatter with rosemary and thyme leaves and a few big pinches of dried oregano.
- With oiled fingers, use your hands like claws to gently prod the toppings down into the dough.
- Loosely cover and set aside to rise for 20-30 minutes until bubbly. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/425°F/gas mark 7.
- Drizzle the surface of the dough with a little more olive oil and dimple it again with your fingers, pressing all the way to the tray; this is what creates air pockets inside.
- Sprinkle over a little flaky sea salt if you like, then bake for 20 minutes, until well browned. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and drizzle with a little more olive oil before serving if you like.
Notes
- See post above for tips, details and step-by-step photos.
- For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them.