Focaccia Genovese

Genoese Olive Oil Flatbread

Genoese focaccia is thin, soft and glistening, with a crisp base and a top pocked with holes where oil and salt have pooled. The trick that makes it is the brine: just before baking, a mixture of water, olive oil and salt is poured over the dough and settles into the dimples.

The Italian recipe read makes a soft dough with strong flour, a little malt and very little yeast, rests it in the fridge for 24 hours, stretches it in the tray, proves it twice more, presses the fingertips all over the surface and floods it with an emulsion of water, oil and salt before baking at 240°C for about a quarter of an hour.

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 335 g strong white bread flour
  • 185 g water, at room temperature
  • 5 g fresh yeast, or 2 g fast-action dried yeast
  • 1 tsp honey or malt extract
  • 20 g extra virgin olive oil
  • 8 g fine sea salt

For the tray and the brine

  • 2 tbsp olive oil, for the tray
  • 75 g warm water
  • 50 g extra virgin olive oil
  • 6 g fine sea salt

Method

  1. Mix Dissolve the yeast and honey in the water. Add the flour and mix to a rough dough, then add the oil and salt and knead for 10 minutes by hand, or 6 minutes in a mixer, until smooth and elastic.
  2. First rise and cold rest Cover and leave at room temperature for 1 hour. Fold the dough over itself, cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.
  3. Stretch Oil the tray generously. Turn the cold dough onto it and press it out towards the edges with your palms. It will spring back; rest it for 10 minutes and press again until it fills the tray. Cover and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour.
  4. Dimple and brine Whisk the warm water, oil and salt for the brine until cloudy. Press your fingertips firmly all over the dough, down to the tray, to make deep dimples. Pour the brine evenly over the top. Leave uncovered for 1 hour 30 minutes, until puffy.
  5. Bake Heat the oven to 240°C (220°C fan). Bake on the lowest shelf for 14 to 16 minutes, until golden on top with pale hollows and crisp underneath. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes before cutting.

Do not skimp on the brine. It looks like too much liquid and it is what keeps the crumb soft.

Best within a few hours of baking.

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