I love baking, and I’m also extremely fussy.
That means I’ll always try at least four versions of a recipe before settling on the best carrot cake, brownie, or rocky road options.
When it comes to focaccia, though, the journey to fluffy, flavourful perfection was a little longer.
I love the spongey, savoury taste of good focaccia, and I was ready to keep trying recipe after recipe ’til I got the right flavour.
I got some tips from outlets like BBC GoodFood, celeb chefs like Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry, and even some specialised cookbooks.
In my quest to find the easiest, most delicious recipe, though, I found something that might get me banned from Italy for life: the best results I got mixed olive oil with other fats.
What works for foccacia?
Paul Hollywood taught me a lesson every focaccia maker must learn; your dough should be more hydrated than you’re likely comfortable with.
My first focaccia attempts fell a little flat and tough because I was hand-kneading the bread, which was ridiculously sticky even 100ml before I added enough water (the BBC GoodFood recipe was even more hydrated).
Time taught me to stick with it.
Mary Berry taught me to add a tiny dash of sugar to the dough too (I don’t know why but it works).
Speaking of time, you really can’t skimp on the kneading or resting here. Paul Hollywood rests his dough for two hours before placing it in an oiled tray, then resting it for another 90 minutes.
If your house is on the chilly side, that’s worth it ― though if your heating’s on full, I recommend cutting that. Bread is mercurial and fussy ― it’s more important to check for a rise than stay glued to a clock.
Lastly, it wasn’t so much finding a perfect recipe that got me my best bread as it was observing some basic rules most sites recommend anyway.
The most transformative changes I made were buying locally milled, organic flour (and yes, I hate myself for writing that, but it’s not just boujie nonsense ― others have seen the difference too) and getting good-quality olive oil.
After all, a basic focaccia recipe only uses olive oil, salt, flour, and water. Why skimp on two of those?
So what’s this about mixing olive oil, then?
I usually roast a chicken alongside my focaccia because I’m obsessed with homemade giant sandwiches (they’ve replaced our Sunday roast).
And after I tried drizzling a half-and-half olive oil and chicken fat mix onto the top of the focaccia when it’s resting, I’ve never gone back.
Looking it up afterwards, I found that Irish chef Peter Byrne likes the addition too ― he mixes it with brown butter for a nutty, unctuous addition.
In fact he goes even further than me, replacing olive oil entirely “to bring the flavour to another level.”
I’m sure you could do this with other roasting juices as well ― once I started, I knew I could never go back.
By the way, if I had to pick one recipe to stick to (though I draw from multiple ones now) it’d be Paul’s ― he’s the Bread King for a reason.