Looking for a forgiving sourdough focaccia recipe that produces a crisp, slightly chewy, fluffy, and flavorful focaccia with tasting notes of honey and malt that is perfect for beginners or a busy schedule? Here it is. The recipe is great for making sandwich bread or dressing it up however you want, add herbs, make it your own!
I’ve been on a baking spree lately since I’ve revived my sourdough starter. Throwing away the discard just sounds like such a waste to me since we buy local organic flour from Bakersfield and Whole Grain Milling company here in Minnesota so I made it a mission to bake to keep the starter going. Other than my Sourdough Scallion Pancake, Sourdough Focaccia is my go-to since it requires minimum hands-on time and is perfect for my work from home break schedule. Start the dough, fold it when I take breaks, put it in the fridge, bake in the morning during my morning yoga the next day.
I don’t always have time to babysit my bread and I wanted a simple enough recipe so I can bake consistently, enters focaccia. I’m not kidding when I say that I’ve baked over 20 loaves in the past month and adjusted the recipe a dozen of times until I got to the conclusion and I’m trying to stop messing with it. Is it just me who always think that there could be a better recipe and it’s never good enough?
Sourdough Focaccia is GREAT for relieving stress
There’s nothing better than sinking the fingers into a pillowy puffy dough and watch the air bubbles pop up. I am obsessed with poking the dough, it’s such a great stress relief. Maybe that’s the real reason why I’ve been baking so much.
Why this sourdough focaccia recipe works with my crazy schedule
Focaccias are pretty forgiving. I’ve messed up the baking schedule a few times and the result isn’t as perfect as I’d like but they are still always edible and still better than most store-bought bread(that we can find here in Rochester). The worst i’ve done is over-proofing the bread at room temp for 13 hours AND THEN forgot it in the oven baking at 400F at least 25 minutes extra because I went to plant some peonies in the garden. I was expecting charcoal and smoke from the oven when I ran back into the house, but it was just a harder loaf of focaccia. We had extra crispy focaccia pizza for lunch that day. It still worked out. Magic.
I love this method because it gives me some flexibility on WHEN I actually bake, and using hotel pans with lids allows me to stack them neatly in the fridge. Baking with lid on help create steam and make the focaccia even taller, I like that because we often cut it in half to make sandwiches.
You can easily double or quadruple the recipe to make more bread! (I usually double the recipe whenever I bake.)
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Crispy & Chewy Sourdough Focaccia
A forgiving sourdough focaccia recipe that produces a slightly chewy, fluffy, and flavorful focaccia with tasting notes of honey and malt. Perfect for beginners or a busy schedule. Great for sandwich bread or dress it up, add herbs, make it your own!
- Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Ingredients
200g King Arthur Bread Flour
200g All Purpose Flour
112g Whole Wheat Bread Flour
100g Sourdough Levain
425g Water (Warm water 80F in the winter)
10g Salt
8g Sugar
10g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Maldon Sea Salt Flakes
Extra Virgin Olive Oil for drizzling
Instructions
10am
Feed your sourdough starter in the morning
3pm
Mix:
100g Sourdough Levain
425g Water
10g Salt
8g Sugar
10g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Add:
200g King Arthur Bread Flour
200g All Purpose Flour
112g Whole Wheat Bread Flour
Mix well together by hand or use a paddle attachment.
Turn and fold the dough over onto itself(like you’re making sourdough bread loaf) every hour, until the dough is bubbly. About 3 hours at 72F, 4h at 65F.
6 or 7pm
Grease a 1/2 size, 4″ deep hotel pan and set aside. (butter works best for non-stick, you can also use canola oil or baking spray)
Flour a work surface, turn the dough on to the work surface. Shape the dough into a long cylinder by stretching and folding the dough from each side into the center of itself like an envelope. Scrape the dough off the bench, flop it into the hotel pan seam side down. Place a lid on top of the pan and refrigerate for 12 – 15 hours.
7am ~ 10am
Preheat your oven to 450F.
Take the dough our of the fridge, coat the dough with olive oil and use your fingers to begin docking the dough with both hands until you have an even pattern of peaks and valleys.
You can let your dough proof again for another hour or two if you feel it was not active enough during docking. (see notes below for photo comparison)
Bake the focaccia on the bottom shelf (if your oven is heated from the bottom) with the lid ON at 450F for 19 minutes
After 19 minutes, lower the heat to 400F. Take the lid off of the pan, sprinkle the focaccia with Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, return to the oven and bake for another 19 minutes or until the focaccia is golden.
Notes
- Using 100% bread flour is too chewy. Especially King Arthur brand. Adding some AP balances the texture out.
- Whole wheat flour adds a really nice flavor and aroma to the bread. honey-like, malty.
- Adding salt flakes after the lid is removed so it doesn’t get steamed and melted.
- Time suggestion is just a guide, every kitchen has different temperature and conditions, monitor as needed. It’s the joy in baking sourdough bread. I bake by how it feels most of the time.
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I’m finding letting the focaccia rest for an hour after taking out of the fridge produces more even bubbles and more satisfying to poke. It’s not the biggest difference, but if you want to be picky. Here are photo comparisons of the same batch of dough. The ones on the left are bake straight out of the fridge, the ones on the right are rested for an hour at room temp before baking.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 40mins
- Category: Bread
