- Baker: Rich Payne / Dough & Behold
- Makes: Makes 1 x 1.5kg dough
- Prep time: 7 hours from mix to bake
- Bake time: 40 mins @ 220C
- Flours used: Cotswold Flour Pizza Flour (Strong White Bread Flour is also perfect for this)
Makes: 1 x 1.5kg Focaccia Dough - Perfect for a round pan 2.5” deep 14” Diameter. Based on mix to bake in 7 hours at room temp 21C.
Focaccia Recipe Method:
- Add all your water, oil, yeast, honey and salt to your mixing bowl and mix together with a spoon or whisk. Add all your flour and mix together with a wooden spoon until there are no dry or lumpy bits. Cover with a tea towel and rest for 10 mins.
- Return to your bowl, wet your hands with either water or rub some olive oil on them (stops the dough sticking to you) and grab a handful of dough and imagine the 12 o’clock position of the bowl, pull the dough up and over the bulk of the dough to the 6 o’clock position. I then turn my bowl a quarter and repeat this four times. This is one series of stretches. Cover the bowl and leave for another 10 mins.
- Repeat the series of stretches every 10 mins for the next hour, and by the end of the hour your dough will have a fair amount of tension and resemble a rough ball, at which point you can pick your dough ball up with two hands an do a series of coil folds until you have a smooth looking dough ball. Don’t worry if your dough still feels a bit sticky here, it’s all good.
- Drizzle some olive oil over you dough and gently rub it over the top of the surface, then cover and rest until the dough has doubled in size (2-4 hours).
- Once the dough has doubled in size, grab your baking pan and drizzle a generous amount of olive oil inside it and spread it all over the pan using your hand, or a bit of kitchen towel so that the whole pan is covered.
- Tip your dough from the mixing bowl into your baking pan, and then (with oiled hands) fold the sides of the dough into the centre of the dough (3 o’clock and 6 o’clock) and press them in, and do the same to the top and bottom of the dough (12 o’clock to 6’o clock), press in at the centre and then gently flip the dough ball over so you have the smooth side facing upwards. Let it rest for a minute or so then gently press and dimple the dough to help stretch it towards the edges of the pan. Don’t worry if it doesn’t stretch out right away, just let it rest for 10-15 mins then return to the dough and dimple again until its all stretched out.
- Cover your pan with a cloth and leave to rise for 1-2 hours at room temp.
- Grab a load of cherry tomatoes. I used a whole packet of @iowtomatoes here. I sliced each tomato a tiny bit in the middle and then over another mixing bowl I then tear each cherry tomato in half (slicing it slightly makes it easier to get a grip to tear them!) At the end you will have a bowlful or torn tomatoes in a load of their own juice. At this point I add fresh oregano leaves and mix it all together with a drizzle of olive oil.
- Preheat your oven to 220c, and if you have a baking steel or carbon steel (I use @scratchmadepizza Carbon steel) place this on the lowest shelf in your fan oven to preheat for a good 45-mins to 1 hour before baking.
- Once your dough has risen a bit more in the pan after 1-2 hours, oi your hands and gently dimple the dough. This is the satisfying part where the dough bubbles up around your fingers and feels light and airy! Once dimplage (ok I made up that word, but it sounds French and I like it!) Is complete then grab your bowl of torn tomatoes and drop them as evenly as possible on top of your dimpled dough, then pressing them gently into the dough.
- Once all the tomatoes are in, I pour the remains juice and herby oil from the bowl into my hand and I sprinkle it all over the top of the dough, I love this part, it adds so much juicy flavour.
- Then sprinkle a generous amount of Sea Salt (or as much as you prefer) over the top of the dough. If you can get your hands on @blackthornsalt its marvellous stuff.
- Gently launch your focaccia onto your baking steel or oven shelf and bake for 20mins. After 20 mins rotate your focaccia 180 degrees and return to the oven for another 20 mins.
- 10 mins before the end of the bake, I like to get some olive oil in a squirt bottle and spray the top of the focaccia with a fine mist of olive oil. This really helps give me the nice golden-brown colour I like. You don’t have to do this, but I do it every time!
- Remove your beautifully baked focaccia from the oven, with a spatula remove the focaccia from the pan (it should come out easily if you oiled the pan well) and place on a wire rack to cool for 20 mins.
- Then slice up serve, dip in oil, balsamic, make into sandwiches, toast, just eat it however you desire!
Hope you enjoy making this. The way the cherry tomatoes caramelise and bake, oozing all their flavour into the dough is a dreamy, sweet and salty hit you will hopefully really enjoy! Making this dough in the large Mason cash mixing bowl is an absolute pleasure too.
Happy baking!
Rich
Thank you so much to Rich for providing this recipe. If you’d like to see more, please visit his Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/dough_and_behold/
