No-knead focaccia: wet dough, plenty of olive oil, crisp dimples
The Italian yeast flatbread that has made itself at home at Polish suppers and barbecues: a very wet dough that is never kneaded, only folded three times with a wet hand, then stretched into an oil-flooded tray and dimpled with your fingers. The dimples catch the oil and salt, the top turns crisp, the inside is full of holes. Twenty minutes of work; the rest is waiting.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Mixing 20 min
- Folding 45 min
- Rising 60 min
- Rising in the tray 45 min
- Baking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneMix a wet dough
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water. Pour the yeast water and 2 tbsp olive oil into the flour and salt, stir with a spoon 2 minutes, until no dry flour remains. The dough is very loose and sticky, like thick porridge: that is right, it is 80 % water to flour. Cover and leave 15 minutes.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 400 ml water · 7 g fresh yeast · 10 g salt · 2 tbsp olive oil
TipThis much water gives big holes and a moist crumb, and the gluten develops by itself during rests and folds. Don't add flour however tempting; time replaces kneading.
Loose as thick porridge, as it should beFold three times
Wet your hand, slide it under one side of the dough, pull up and fold over the centre. Turn the bowl a quarter and repeat, 4 times in all. Cover. Repeat this folding twice more, every 20 minutes. After the third set the dough is smooth and springy, though still wet.
TipA wet hand doesn't stick to the dough. Each fold arranges the gluten strands into a net that holds the air bubbles: that is all the 'kneading' this focaccia gets.
Wet hand, four folds, three times every 20 minutesLeave to double
Cover the dough and leave somewhere warm for 60 minutes, until doubled and covered in bubbles. For better flavour: after the folds, the bowl goes into the fridge overnight, and in the morning straight into the tray; the cold dough then needs about 1½–2 hours to rise in the tray.
Doubled, bubbles under the surfaceInto the tray, then stretch
Pour 3 tbsp olive oil into the tray and spread over the base and sides. Tip the dough in with one movement; don't knock it back. With oiled fingertips gently stretch it toward the corners; if it springs back, wait 10 minutes and finish. Cover and leave 45 minutes, until puffy.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp olive oil · 1 tsp coarse salt · 1 tbsp rosemary or oregano
Onto the oil, stretched with fingers, not a pinDimple
Heat the oven to 230 °C. Dip your fingers in oil and press them into the dough right down to the tray, densely, all over; the dough puffs into cushions around them. Drizzle with the last tablespoon of oil, sprinkle with coarse salt and rosemary or oregano.
TipThe dimples must reach the base. Shallow ones smooth out in the oven and the focaccia comes out like a plain flatbread, without crisp oil-filled hollows.
Fingers to the base, oil in the dimplesBake
Bake on the middle shelf 22–25 minutes, until the top is golden and the edges crisp and darker. Check the base with a spatula: golden and firm. Switch to fan for the last 5 minutes if you want the dimples browner.
Golden, crisp edges, firm baseCool briefly and cut
Leave in the tray 5 minutes, then move to a rack so the base doesn't soften from steam. Cut into squares and eat warm. The next day refresh 5 minutes at 180 °C.
Squares, warm, olive oil for dipping
Before you start
With cherry tomatoes and onion
Before baking press halved cherry tomatoes and slivers of red onion into the dimples, add olives. Supper from one tray.
With garlic
Three sliced garlic cloves warmed 5 minutes in oil over low heat, cooled; use that oil for the tray and the top.
Flat and dense
Too little water (flour added), dough knocked back when moved, or too short a rise in the tray. Stick to 80 % water and don't rush the final rise.
