Baking Focaccia with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

By A Weekend Walking and Eating in Andalusia
Comments 35
7 Jul 2026

Baking Focaccia with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

Why focaccia is the forgiving loaf

Focaccia is the bread I recommend to anyone who has ever been disappointed by a tight, heavy home-baked loaf. It asks very little of you in the way of shaping, it forgives an extra twenty minutes of rising, and its signature texture — crisp, oil-slicked edges and a crumb you can press with a fingertip — comes from a dough so wet it would be unmanageable on a worktop. You never need to knead it into a smooth ball or slash it with a blade. You pour it into a tin, let it spread itself out, and bake it.

There is something deeply Mediterranean about the whole process: the smell of olive oil warming in a tin, a scatter of flaky salt, sprigs of rosemary pulled from a pot by the back door. If you grow herbs in the UK, this is the recipe that uses them best.

Start with a wet dough — and trust it

For a standard 20 x 30 cm tin you want roughly 500 g of strong white bread flour, 400 g of lukewarm water, 10 g of fine sea salt and 7 g of dried yeast. That 80 per cent hydration is what gives you the open, airy crumb, so resist the urge to add more flour because the dough looks slack. It is supposed to look slack.

Mix and rest: stir everything together with a spoon or dough scraper until no dry patches remain, then cover and leave for 30 minutes.
Fold, don't knead: wet your hand, lift one side of the dough, stretch it upwards and fold it over the middle. Repeat on all four sides. Do this three times, spaced about 20 minutes apart.
Cold prove: cover the bowl and put it in the fridge overnight, or for up to 48 hours. Slow fermentation is where the flavour comes from, and it fits neatly around a working day.

Bring the dough back to room temperature for an hour or two before baking. If you are short of time you can skip the fridge and prove it on the worktop for two hours, but the flavour will be milder.

Olive oil is an ingredient, not a lubricant

Most supermarket "light" olive oils are perfectly good for frying but contribute almost nothing in the way of flavour. For focaccia you want something with character — a peppery extra virgin oil from a recent harvest, ideally with a harvest date on the label rather than a vague best-before. Buy in tins or dark bottles where you can, and keep them away from the light above the hob.

You will use far more oil than feels reasonable: around four to five tablespoons in the tin alone, plus more for your hands and a final drizzle before baking. This is not excess. The oil is what fries the base to a golden, crisp layer and gives the surface its glossy, savoury finish. Pour it in, tilt the tin so it coats every corner, and let the dough sit in a shallow pool.

Dimpling, salting and the case for restraint

Once the dough is in the oiled tin and has relaxed outwards for an hour or so, oil your fingertips and press straight down through it, right to the base of the tin, making dimples across the whole surface. Don't be timid — deep dimples hold little pools of oil and stop the top doming into an ordinary loaf.

Then scatter flaky sea salt over the top. Coarse, flaky salt is worth seeking out; fine table salt dissolves and disappears, while flakes sit on the surface and crunch. Two generous pinches is about right. Add rosemary, thyme or a few thin slices of red onion pushed into the dimples, but keep the toppings light so the crumb can still rise.

Some bakers pour a little brine — a teaspoon of salt dissolved in two tablespoons of water — over the top just before baking. It keeps the surface from drying out and gives a delicate, almost brittle crust. Try it once and decide for yourself.

Baking for crisp edges and a soft centre

Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan) with a shelf in the middle, and a sturdy baking tray or stone on the shelf below if you have one. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turning the tin once, until the top is deep gold and the edges are dark and crisp in places.

For a firmer base: lift the focaccia out of the tin with a spatula for the final five minutes and set it directly on the oven shelf.
Cool on a rack: never on a plate, or the base will steam and soften.
Serve warm or at room temperature: both are good. It is best on the day of baking, but revives well in a hot oven for five minutes the next day.

Using your garden herbs — and eating the results

Rosemary is the classic, and it thrives in a pot on a sunny windowsill or a sheltered corner of a UK garden. Strip the needles from woody stems rather than chopping them finely, which turns them bitter. Thyme, oregano and winter savoury all overwinter well in pots provided they are not left standing in water. Chives and parsley are better added after baking, scattered over the hot surface with a final drizzle of oil.

For serving, treat focaccia as a vehicle rather than a side: split and fill it with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, use it to mop up the oil left in a roasting tin, or cut it into fingers and grill with a little more oil and salt until the edges blacken. A jar of good olive oil, a bag of flour and a pot of rosemary are really all this bread asks for — and it rewards the effort far more generously than its short list of ingredients suggests.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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