Garlic Bread Focaccia

Thick and soft, Ligurian-style focaccia is the base for this simple, homemade garlic bread focaccia recipe. My favorite homemade focaccia bread gets drenched in flavorful garlic butter and dotted with lots of fresh herbs.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, garlic bread is my favorite food. I will gladly forgo a slice of cake or spoonful of tiramisu for dessert in order to eat more garlic bread. I especially like it leftover for breakfast with fried eggs, but honestly, I cannot think of a time when I don’t want to be eating garlic bread.

I also feel this way about focaccia. Last week, I read about a little restaurant in St. Paul called Due Focacceria, an Italian cafe that serves Capalleti Spritzs and focaccia a bunch of different ways. The night after I read about this restaurant, I dreamt about it and that doesn’t feel weird at all. Focaccia is one of the best breads for many reasons, but it’s my favorite because it’s the simplest. It takes almost no effort to mix together a batch of focaccia dough and then you go to sleep while it does its thing and when you wake up, you are two hours and a dimpling away from snacking on freshly baked bread. The marriage of these two things just feels right.

how to make focaccia

Focaccia is a high-hydration, Italian-style bread. My basic recipe is very lightly adapted from Samin Nosrat and you can find it here. I also highly recommend hopping on Netflix and watching Samin make a batch of focaccia in Liguria in the “Fat” episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I’ve played around with a lot of dough recipes and the thing that I love about Samin’s recipe is the brining step. After mixing together the dough and letting it rest overnight, we dump the dough into a well-oiled pan and stretch it for another proof. After giving it about 30 minutes for the gluten strands to relax, we’ll stretch it again into its final shape, dimple it, and brine it in a little bit of salt water. This extra little step adds so much moisture and flavor to the dough, you don’t want to skip it! Even if you already have a favorite focaccia recipe, I recommend you add brining as a step—you won’t be disappointed.

After the second proof, the dough is dimpled again and drizzled with olive oil. For this garlic bread focaccia, we’ll sprinkle the top with a bunch of fresh herbs. I used rosemary, thyme, and oregano, but you can use any of your favorites. The focaccia is baked until golden brown and crispy.

While the focaccia is baking, we make the garlic butter by heating a bunch of garlic, butter, red pepper flakes, and salt over low heat until fragrant and the garlic is softened. Smash the garlic into small pieces and return it to the butter and the drench the focaccia with the garlic butter right when it comes out of the oven.

Yield

one 9x13" baking dish

Author

Anna Ramiz

Prep time

20 Min

Cook time

35 Min

Inactive time

12 Hour

Total time

12 H & 55 M

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Garlic Bread Focaccia

Thick and soft, Ligurian-style focaccia is the base for this simple, homemade garlic bread focaccia recipe. My homemade focaccia bread gets drenched in flavorful garlic butter and dotted with lots of fresh herbs. Base focaccia recipe inspired by Samin Nosrat.

Ingredients

for the dough

• 600g (2 1/2 cups) water
• 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 15g (2 1/2 tsp) honey
• 800g (5 1/3 cups) all purpose flour
• 18g (2 tbsp) kosher salt
• 50g (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil, plus more for pan and drizzling

for the saltwater brine

• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

for the garlic butter

• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 3 sprigs fresh oregano
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 large cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• Flaky salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, stir together water, yeast, olive oil, and honey. Let rest for 5 minutes. Add flour and salt and stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until completely combined and no flour streaks remain. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest on your countertop for 12-14 hours, until doubled in volume. (I like to mix this together before bed and let it rest overnight.)
2. Spread 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil over the surface of a 9x13” baking dish. Turn dough out onto the baking sheet and gently stretch the dough towards to the edges of the pan. To do this without tearing the dough, I like to reach my hands underneath and gently pulling it towards the outside. At this point, it will probably shrink back a bit, but that’s okay. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
3. After 30 minutes, use your fingers to dimple the entire surface of the dough. Stir together warm water and salt and then pour brine over the top of the dimpled dough. Cover again and proof for another 45 minutes.
4. About 30 minutes into your final proof, preheat your oven to 425° F. When the oven is hot and the dough is proofed, remove cover, sprinkle with fresh herbs. Drizzle with olive oil and bake for 30-35 minutes, until deeply golden brown.
5. While the focaccia is baking, combine butter, garlic cloves, and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan. Set over low heat and cook until butter is melted and garlic cloves have softened. Remove garlic cloves, roughly chop, and return them to the butter.
6. Pour garlic butter over hot focaccia and sprinkle with flaky salt. Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, and then use a spatula to loosen the edges from the side of the pan.

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Schiacciata with Caramelized Onions and Figs

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Schiacciata with Caramelized Onions and Figs

I’ve been feeling pretty old this week. While I haven’t been creator in this food blogging world for very long, I’ve been an avid food blog reader and cookbook enthusiast since my freshmen year of college…which was over ten years ago. Back then, the only way to discover new blogs was to spend hours browsing through Food Gawker or Pinterest, and through their writing, these food bloggers quickly became virtual friends. I would regularly check their websites for new content. Not just recipes, but stories and short little essays about their lives, friends and family, and yes, cookies. I would invite these cooks into my kitchen in the form of their recipes, not because their pictures were perfectly styled or they had massive followings, but because their writing and their recipes resonated with me. I loved this little world of food blogging and dreamed about one day being a part of it. I dreamed about writing stories that people got excited to read, developing new recipes that my own little community looked forward to each week, and through this blogging portal, entering into a stranger’s kitchen and coaching them through making something new.

Fast forward a handful of years and the food blogging landscape looks a little different. Those people whose websites I ran back to time and time again are still out in the blog-o-sphere, and they are still the ones I go to for inspiration, though I’ve added a few new ones to the mix. But sometimes it feels like the future of food blogging hinges on flashy images that catch your attention in a nano-second, or easily-digestible clips that can be viewed (or skipped over) in an instant. At risk of sounding like a crotchety old lady, the thing I love most about food is that it is an experience. Kneading dough takes time and tactile effort. Waiting for bread to rise takes patience, and decorating cakes is intricate work. In order to be successful in this industry, do I have to hack all of that away in an effort to gain more likes? I don’t know the answer to this. I don’t think any of us in this little world really know the answer to this, but I find myself asking if there is still space for my slightly old school approach to food blogging in this fast-paced industry. I think it will be a little give and take and I’m working to find my niche in a way that feels authentic to me, while also using the tools that technology affords me as a way to grow my business. With all of the craziness of the past few months, I think we’ve all had our eyes opened to the importance of slowing down and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to carry that with me as life begins to speed up again.

Now, lets talk schiacciata! Schiacciata is a Tuscan-style flatbread, similar to a focaccia but with a lower hydration level which makes it a little thinner and a little crisper. As if focaccia and pizza had a baby. It’s an easier dough to throw together and only needs a couple of hours to do it’s thing, which means you can start it in the afternoon and eat it for dinner. The recipe for this dough is lightly adapted from Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi, which is my very favorite book of all time. The dough is topped with tangles of caramelized onions and fresh figs that have been tossed in za’atar and feels like that perfect time of year when summer nights are waning, but fall hasn’t quite arrived. You can by za’atar at your local Middle Eastern Market or on Amazon, but I made my own using this recipe. It’s fairly simple and uses mostly spices that you already have on hand.

Schiacciata with Caramelized Onions and Figs

Yield: 1 10x16” flatbread

Schiacciata dough recipe adapted from Helen Goh

Ingredients 

for the dough

2 2/3 cup (330 g) bread flour

3/4 tsp active dry yeast

220 g warm water

2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the pan

1 egg yolk

1 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar

for the onions

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

a hefty pinch of salt

for the figs and toppings

1 lb fresh figs, quartered

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp za’atar 

honey, to drizzle

goat cheese

flaky salt for finishing

Procedure: 

1. In a large bowl, stir together water, yeast, and half of the flour, until no dry streaks of flour remain. Cover with plastic wrap and let proof at room temperature for about an hour, until dough is bubbly and swollen.

2. Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment and add the rest of the flour, olive oil, egg yolk, salt, and sugar. Knead on medium speed for about 6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and cohesive, pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Scrape down the sides, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and proof for another hour, until doubled in size. 

3. While the dough is proofing, caramelize the onions. Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add butter and olive oil to the pan and when they begin to sizzle, add the onions. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are beginning to lightly brown on the edges. Turn the heat down to low, sprinkle with a hefty pinch of salt, and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring frequently, until they are very soft and dark brown in color. Remove from heat and let cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. 

4. In a medium bowl, toss quartered figs with a tablespoon of olive oil, za’atar, and a pinch of salt. Set aside. 

5. When the dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 450° F. Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil over a rimmed sheet pan and turn the dough onto the oiled pan. Use your hands to gently stretch and push the dough into a rustic rectangle, about 10x16” in size. 

6. Spread the tangles of caramelized onions over the surface of the dough, followed by the figs. Drizzle the entire thing with a little olive oil one more time, then bake for 20-22 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the edges of the crust are golden brown and the bottom of the dough is crisp. 

7. Remove schiacciata from the oven, sprinkle with goat cheese and flaky salt and drizzle with honey. 

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Thoughts about Blogging and Samin Nosrat's Ligurian Focaccia

Samin Nosrat's Ligurian focaccia recipe from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat with a smattering of fresh herbs and some instructions for incorporating your sourdough starter into a focaccia recipe.

There are many days (far too many if I’m being completely honest) where I feel silly. Silly for quitting a full-time career —a career that is looked admirably upon by our society, one that comes with benefits and a consistent salary—to become a food blogger. Silly that I spent a year and a half in culinary school and interned in a high-end restaurant to spend my days developing recipes at home. There are so many days when I think to myself, I just need to go get a real job, mostly because I care a lot about what everyone else thinks about me. 

Being a teacher has value in our society. I was doing important work. It didn’t matter that I was so drained emotionally, mentally, and physically that I fell asleep on the couch before 8 p.m. almost every single night or cried on the way to work most mornings. I was changing the world. Or at least that’s what I liked to tell myself. Even working in a restaurant has value. Set time shifts, a menu to follow, guests to serve. It’s a real, viable career. In my mind, there is this hierarchy of important-ness when it comes to choosing a career and testing flourless chocolate cakes and writing detailed posts teaching someone how to start a sourdough culture doesn’t top the list. It’s been really hard for me to reconcile this with that hierarchy in my head.

It’s hard for me to find value in my work in a society that constantly tells you to “hustle” and “be a boss” and elevates “the grind” onto the highest pedestal. Am I still a strong, independent woman if I choose to spend my days following “domestic” passions? Am I a contributing member of society if I don’t receive a regular paycheck? Can I stay home if I’m not a mom? These questions swirl in my head almost every day. 

Just before Christmas, we had some plumbing issues in our house and for an afternoon, our home was a revolving door of repairmen. I was shooting a new recipe for the blog in our office and as our landlord left, he asked if I was a food photographer. I was so proud, and in an effort to appear confident and poised, I replied with a definite yes. And a recipe developer, I added. His immediate follow-up question was “you make money from that?” I felt the confidence seep from me like air out of a balloon. Because, in our culture of busy-ness, that’s what it always comes down to. What are you worth? That question is asked of us everyday in someway or another. When you meet someone new, the first question is always “what do you do?”. We title ourselves teacher, doctor, lawyer, chef…stamping our careers on ourselves like a badge. This is who I am. It’s so easy, and even encouraged, to find our identity in our jobs. 

Last October, I spent a weekend in Knoxville to help out a dinner party. I spent the Monday before I headed back to Orlando with my cousin Meg (who owns her own herbal goods business) and our friend Jordyn (who had the day off from work). We went to lunch and ended up on the front porch at 2 p.m., sharing a bottle of 1995 Vouvray and it was perfect. The afternoon was one I won’t soon forget forget, because slowing down, enjoying simple things like great wine and good weather, being outside, and spending time in community brought me so much joy. But with it came that nagging guilt in the back of my head. It’s a Monday afternoon, what are we doing drinking wine on the porch? We should be out there with the rest of the world, staring at computer screens and answering phone calls, right? 

The work I do now sometimes feels so slow. For every food blogger that is able to create a business for themselves, write a book, or have work published in magazines, there are a hundred who never “make it”. What makes me any different? Recipe ideas scribbled into notebooks don’t feel much like a book proposal. I’ll spend hours developing and shooting a recipe I’m proud of, only to lose Instagram followers. I often find myself glued to my analytics. How many people came to the site today? Did they read anything? Why did my traffic go down? And I’m dragged right back into it— finding my value and worth in my performance or my work, rather than simply finding joy in my privilege to spend my day following my passions.

All of this to say, I’m working on remembering my real identity. I’m so grateful that those voices whispering in my head don’t speak the truth. My value isn’t dependent on the importance of my job, the size of my paycheck, or my success in the eyes of the world. And I’m trying to spend more time remembering the absolute joy I experience when someone reads my work and takes the time to make a sourdough culture. Even if it’s only one person. I’m working on reminding myself that it’s okay if I never publish a book, or make a dime off of the recipes I create or the pictures I take, or reach 10,000 Instagram followers, because at the end of it all, I’m going to be remembering the afternoons spent on the porch with friends anyway. 

Samin Nosrat’s Ligurian Focaccia (lightly adapted)

Over the last few years, I’ve learned that I love making bread. The process is both precise and romantic. It slows me down and helps me take note of the little things—the change as water saturates the flour, the tightness the dough takes on when the salt is added, and the feel of gluten developing in each turn. Something about taking only a few ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast) and using my hands to transform them into something completely new reminds me of why I love the work I do.

If you’ve ever been interested in making bread, but intimidated by the process of it all, this is the bread for you. It’s the starting line of bread making and the fact that the recipe is very low effort and very high reward makes it ideal for your first foray into bread land. (No stand mixer, no folding every hour, no fancy ingredients.) Bonus, this recipe yields the most delicious focaccia I’ve ever eaten and you feel like a star after making it. 

This is the same recipe that Samin uses, I’ve just added some fresh herbs and included instructions for adding sourdough if you want to get really fancy. I like to mix together my dough the night before, let it rest on the counter and bake it first thing in the morning so that I have warm, crunchy focaccia for the entire day. This makes a pretty big sheet (about a half sheet pan size), so feel free to share some with a friend or freeze half for a rainy day. 

Yield

one 12x18" sheet pan

Author

Anna Ramiz

Prep time

20 Min

Cook time

30 Min

Inactive time

16 Hour

Total time

16 H & 50 M

Print

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Samin Nosrat's Ligurian-Style Focaccia

Samin Nosrat's Ligurian focaccia recipe from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat with a smattering of fresh herbs and some instructions for incorporating your sourdough starter into a focaccia recipe.

Ingredients US Metric Both

• 600g (2 1/2 cups) water
• 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 15g (2 1/2 tsp) honey
• 800g (5 1/3 cups) all purpose flour
• 18g (2 tbsp) kosher salt
• 50g (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil, plus more for pan and drizzling
• 2-3 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (I used a blend of rosemary, oregano, and thyme)

for the saltwater brine

• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, stir together water, yeast, olive oil, and honey. Let rest for 5 minutes. Add flour, salt, and herbs and stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until completely combined and no flour streaks remain. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest on your countertop for 12-14 hours, until doubled in volume. (I like to mix this together before bed and let it rest overnight.)
2. Spread 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil over the surface of a rimmed 12x18” baking sheet. Turn dough out onto the baking sheet and gently stretch the dough towards to the edges of the pan. To do this without tearing the dough, I like to reach my hands underneath and gently pulling it towards the outside. At this point, it will probably shrink back a bit, but that’s okay. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
3. After 30 minutes, use your fingers to dimple the entire surface of the dough. Stir together warm water and salt and then pour brine over the top of the dimpled dough. Cover again and proof for another 45 minutes.
4. About 30 minutes into your final proof, preheat your oven to 450° F. When the oven is hot and the dough is proofed, remove cover, sprinkle with flaky salt. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Make sure to check that the bottom of the dough is crisp and browned.
5. Remove focaccia from oven and immediately drizzle with more olive oil. Let rest for about 5 minutes and then use a metal spatula to loosen from pan. Enjoy warm with butter or olive oil and more flaky salt.

Notes:

• Adding a sourdough starter to any bread recipe is really fairly easy! Your sourdough culture is essentially a mixture of equal parts flour and water, so to add some to a recipe that doesn’t call for a culture, first decide how much starter you want to use. I usually start with 50 grams on my first experiment with a new recipe and then increase or decrease based on how the final product turns out. Then, you simply decrease your flour and water amounts to reflect the extra flour and water that you are adding to the dough. If you add 50 grams of starter, that breaks down to 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of water, so you will subtract 25 grams from each of the flour and water amounts that recipe calls for.
• For this recipe, I added 50 grams of mature starter to my water, yeast, olive oil, and honey mixture and decreased the water to 575g and flour to 775g. 

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Tag @gatheredatmytable on instagram and hashtag it #gatheredatmytable