Sourdough is inferior to any yeast based dough. Period. And while this does hold true for focaccia, I do make yeast based variants more often than I would like to admin. It is super easy and one of my feel good meals if I want some bread based meal fast.
Ingredients
- 500g wheat flour
- 325g warm water (65% hydration)
- 10g salt
- 1pkg instant yeast or 1/2 cube of fresh yeast
- some oil (not for the dough!)
Instructions
Mix the flour, water, yeast and salt together. (Usually I would activate the yeast in some of the water. But hey, this is the fast focaccia recipe..)
Knead the dough for a few minutes and let it rest for 20-30 minutes. Put some olive oil on a baking tray. Try to cover all of it so the dough will not stick to it.
Get the dough out of the bowl and stretch it a bit in your hands. Aim for a square with roughly the same thickness, though know that it does not matter which form you end up with. Place it on the well oiled baking tray and turn it around so both sides get oily. Now fold over the dough in the middle, then start to stretch it out again to fully cover your tray. Repeat the process 2-3 times.
Note: my initial goal with this method was to get some visible structures in the dough. While I did not get the wanted textures, I noticed that I got better crumb results with short resting times with this method rather than adding oil directly to the dough.
After your last fold stretch the dough out to fully cover your tray again. Place your preferred toppings on the dough, cover it and let it rest for 40-60 minutes. Bake it at 225 degrees for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle some oil over the focaccia 10 minutes before you get it out of the oven.
Notes
Focaccia can be served warm and cold. Especially later option can be enhanced by slicing it horizontally and adding some additional toppings such as mozzarella.
