Focaccia

[SeventyTimes7]

Hi, I do love to bake focaccia and I can assure you which it is one of the most easy recipes in this world and you can save lot of money by baking it in your own house instead to go to pizzerias, and it's a chance to invite friends at home and to bake your own foccaccia adding the ingredients that you desire on it and then eating it in front of TV with some sparkling wine or beer.
I am European but I guess which most of you use English measures, but if someone needs I could convert the sizes in grams and cm.

Dough for 1 focaccia (12x15inch backing tin):
- 17.65oz white flour (you can mix all the flours you wish but always use at least half or 1/3 of white flour or manitoba for to have a soft focaccia)
- 7.35oz water
- 1.75oz oil (mais or peanut nut oil or any oil you wish)
- 1 packet of baking yeast (dried or fresh doesn't matter but I forbid you to use baking-powder)
- 2 teaspoons of brown-sugar (or common sugar if you wish)
- 0.25oz salt

How to proceed:
First put the water in a huge glass or in a cup which can contain 7.35oz of liquid;
add the yeast and the sugar inside the water and mix it with a teaspoon until it's enough melted and leave this mix apart for later.
Put the flour in a large bowl (I usually use a plastic one), make a little hole in the flour and put the salt inside it and then cover again the hole, because the salt must not go directly in contact with the yeast mix or the yeast would die.
Then put the oil and the yeast mix upon the flour and start to mix the dough with your own hands (the way I do) or you can use a bakery mixer, and work it until the dough is smooth and elastic (usually 10 minutes).
Take the dough and stroke some flour around it and put it in the bowl so when the dough will grow it will not be sticky all around the bowl.
Cover the bowl with a cloth and then put it in a warm place: I usually heat the oven until it reach 85° Fahrenheit and I turn it off so I can put the plastic bowl inside the oven with the dough without problems (pay attention cause over the 100° Fahrenheit the plastic will melt and the yeast will die, so you must leave just a little heat in the oven and it will be enough to activate the yeast).
Leave the dough to grow for 1 hour if you put it in the oven, or more than 1 hour if you put it under a warm plaid cover, the dough in both cases the dough should reach a double volume.
After 1 hour take a bakery-tin and put some oil on the bottom and brush it until it will be a thin veil all over the surface (if is too abundant no problem); now take the dough and steer it with your hands directly on the bakery-tin bottom; now you can start to add your ingredients and while you do it set your oven on at a temperature of 320°F.
**You must select "pizza" option, but if your oven doesn't have it, the important is to set an option which emits heat from top and bottom of the oven simultaneously.**
So after you finished to put your favourite ingredients upon your focaccia and after the oven reach it's heat, you can finally bake your focaccia at 320°F for 20 minutes; obviously a lot could change from an oven to the other, but with this temperature I assure that you will not burn the cheese.

This is the one of my last results:
Focaccia with forest mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese

If you have any questions just ask me, I will be happy to answer you

 

[Take Heart]

If you have any questions just ask me, I will be happy to answer you

First of.. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS! Oh my goodness, you have no idea .. lol. Let me explain xD
I saw your thread on my news feeds, clicked it, and read 'focaccia' and thought.. 'hm, I wonder what this is..let's google search it'. And all this time.. my mom's friend, who's italian, -sweet old lady by the way- has been baking this for us and I always thought it was just called 'italian pizza' because she called it pizza. NOW I CAN SEARCH UP RECIPES FOR THIS! TT u TT
Actually- I don't have to since you've already got it here. 2 questions though: What's "00" flour?
I live in Canada, if that makes any difference, and we've got white flour, whole wheat, cake flour, etc. Is "00" a brand name or a type of flour?
And does the water have to be a certain temp? [warm/cold/lukewarm]

 

[SeventyTimes7]

First of.. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS! Oh my goodness, you have no idea .. lol. Let me explain xD
I saw your thread on my news feeds, clicked it, and read 'focaccia' and thought.. 'hm, I wonder what this is..let's google search it'. And all this time.. my mom's friend, who's italian, -sweet old lady by the way- has been baking this for us and I always thought it was just called 'italian pizza' because she called it pizza. NOW I CAN SEARCH UP RECIPES FOR THIS! TT u TT
Actually- I don't have to since you've already got it here. 2 questions though: What's "00" flour?
I live in Canada, if that makes any difference, and we've got white flour, whole wheat, cake flour, etc. Is "00" a brand name or a type of flour?
And does the water have to be a certain temp? [warm/cold/lukewarm]

Hi, I am happy to hear that
Well we can say which Focaccia is more ancient than pizza, because we call focaccia anything which was about mixing water and flour and yeast and baking it, and many ancient cultures used to bake "focaccia".
The Pizza born in 19th century was just a common dough made with flour and water, but particularly was the use of tomato sauce inside it, and tomatoes were brought in Italy during the 17th century.
Focaccia needs more yeast than pizza, in focaccia there is the oil, and focaccia can be baked dry (with some spices and without any other ingredient on it) with some olives or just spices, like rosemary and salt, etc.. or u can use focaccia as a sandwich filling it the way you want.

"00" flour is a white flour but it's not as strong as Manitoba flour.
If you use strong flours like Manitoba one, then you will have a more fluffy and tall result, the flour will grow a lot and it would taste also a little more sweet so don't put more than 50% of manitoba in any case because is too much strong.
A standard focaccia needs just white flour or any flour you wish, but a 100% traditional focaccia needs half white flour and half durum wheat flour (semola) and olive oil instead of other oils.

The water should be lukewarm, but if you heat it (not boiling temp. cause you would kill the yeast) it would be good and probably you will not need to put the dough in the oven for to activate the yeast, but just under a cover.

 

[Take Heart]

Hi, I am happy to hear that
Well we can say which Focaccia is more ancient than pizza, because we call focaccia anything which was about mixing water and flour and yeast and baking it, and many ancient cultures used to bake "focaccia".
The Pizza born in 19th century was just a common dough made with flour and water, but particularly was the use of tomato sauce inside it, and tomatoes were brought in Italy during the 17th century.
Focaccia needs more yeast than pizza, in focaccia there is the oil, and focaccia can be baked dry (with some spices and without any other ingredient on it) with some olives or just spices, like rosemary and salt, etc.. or u can use focaccia as a sandwich filling it the way you want.

"00" flour is a white flour but it's not as strong as Manitoba flour.
If you use strong flours like Manitoba one, then you will have a more fluffy and tall result, the flour will grow a lot and it would taste also a little more sweet so don't put more than 50% of manitoba in any case because is too much strong.
A standard focaccia needs just white flour or any flour you wish, but a 100% traditional focaccia needs half white flour and half durum wheat flour (semola) and olive oil instead of other oils.

The water should be lukewarm, but if you heat it (not boiling temp. cause you would kill the yeast) it would be good and probably you will not need to put the dough in the oven for to activate the yeast, but just under a cover.

Ah! Thank you so much for the information and for answering my questions c:
I hope to try this recipe out sometime!

 

[SeventyTimes7]

Ah! Thank you so much for the information and for answering my questions c:
I hope to try this recipe out sometime!

If you bake one let me know about your result

 

[Take Heart]

If you bake one let me know about your result

Sure thing! Let's hope I remember xD

 

[Red Gold]

Well we can say which Focaccia is more ancient than pizza, because we call focaccia anything which was about mixing water and flour and yeast and baking it, and many ancient cultures used to bake "focaccia".
The Pizza born in 19th century was just a common dough made with flour and water, but particularly was the use of tomato sauce inside it, and tomatoes were brought in Italy during the 17th century.
Focaccia needs more yeast than pizza, in focaccia there is the oil, and focaccia can be baked dry (with some spices and without any other ingredient on it) with some olives or just spices, like rosemary and salt, etc.. or u can use focaccia as a sandwich filling it the way you want.

Good to know!