How to Bake Focaccia Bread

this oven baked Italian flatbread is
related to pizza hi I’m Rebecca Brayton
and welcome to watchmojo.com and today
Baker Marc Andres here is going to show
us how to make a traditional focaccia
these are the ingredients you’ll be
using start with three and a quarter
cups all-purpose flour teaspoon and a
half of dry yeast two teaspoons of sea
salt 2 cups of room-temperature water a
quarter cup of olive oil for the garnish
we’re gonna have fresh rosemary fleur de
sel cornmeal to put under the dough and
some freshly cracked pepper so we’ll
start by combining all our dry
ingredients the yeast into the flour sea
salt mix it all and we’ll make sure they
used to spread out everywhere as well as
the salt you can use your hands or you
can start with the wooden spoon once
that’s all combined we’ll add our
liquids start with the water then the
oil now just the messy part we start
mixing it’s good to keep a bit of extra
water and a bit of flour on hand in this
case it’s a little wet so we’ll be
adding some flour
at this point once the dough starts to
hold together you’ll want to take it out
of the bowl and start the full kneading
process always a matter of flattening
the dough rolling it flipping it over
this kneading technique applies to any
sort of bread dough we could be making
you know white dough brown dough rye
bread anything that has east in it and
flour so you’ll want to pre-heat your
oven to 425 degrees after about 10-12
minutes of kneading the dough you want
to prepare your bowl some oil this is so
the dough can rest and rise the oil will
keep it from sticking to the sides so
it’ll puff up nicely we’ll just turn it
a couple of times make sure it’s nice
and smooth notice how it’s much smoother
than we began 12 minutes ago shape it
into a ball flip it over
pinch the edges bring it together then
put that seam on the underside put it in
a bowl put a dish cloth over the bowl or
some plastic wrap and let it sit for at
least an hour until it’s doubled in bulk
find a warm damp spot in the house a
good spot is either above your clothes
dryer or on top of the fridge in the
kitchen so now our dough has doubled in
bulk we’re going to need to pour it out
onto a floured work surface so we can
flatten it and then put it onto the
baking sheet
so it’s important to press down but not
stretch the dough you want to press it
down and gently get it to the size and
shape you want so now our ovens hot 425
degrees our dough has been stretched out
pulled to the size we want so it fits in
our baking sheet we’re gonna prepare the
sheet a bit of parchment paper then the
cornmeal at the bottom helps give it a
bit of crunch just simulates a bit of a
if you were cooking it directly on a
pizza stone so I’m gonna transfer the
dough stretch it a little but always
very gently press it to cover your sheet
now it’s ready to garnish this where you
do the signature pockmarks open the
focaccia now this is fleur de sel which
is a really nice delicate salt rock salt
could also be used now the freshly
cracked pepper is generally an optional
ingredient but I really like a fresh
cracked pepper on there now the rosemary
some people like a lot of it some like a
little bit other herbs could be used you
can put fresh basil in here but the
basil these might crisp a little too
much in the oven or you could put thyme
oregano now this baby’s ready to bake
we’re gonna put in there for 15 to 20
minutes after 15 minutes take a look if
it starts to get nice and golden and it
puffs up nicely it’s ready and then you
can choose to go darker depends on herbs
you used in the case of rosemary 20
minutes should be good let’s hop to
starting to color we’ll take it out
before it dries out too much one nice
way of serving the focaccia is with a
homemade bruschetta or you can drizzle
it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
for a perfect pairing