Name: Tremendous Focaccia
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour; 400 g warm water (around 95F); 1 tsp instant yeast; 10 g kosher salt; 1/4 cup, plus more for the pan and top extra-virgin olive oil; 2 tbsp fresh rosemary, leaves picked; 1 tbsp flaky sea salt

Tremendous Focaccia

Prep

20m

Cook

25m

Total

45m

Bigly says

I want to talk about focaccia. Pillowy, dimpled, glossy-with-olive-oil focaccia, the way it's supposed to be — and I'll be honest with you, most focaccia in the wild is a TRAGEDY. A flat, sad, cracker-like disappointment that tastes like the inside of a shoe. I've eaten more focaccia than anyone in recorded history, and ninety percent of what gets called focaccia out there is an INSULT to the dough that died to make it. Sad. Embarrassing. A disgrace to bread. We're fixing this today.

An old Italian woman cornered me once in a hill town in Liguria — tough woman, leathery hands, smelled like rosemary and grudges — and she made me promise to do focaccia THIS way, no other way. I made the promise. I have kept it. I will keep it until the day I die. She said: high hydration. Long cold ferment. AGGRESSIVE dimpling. She said the word aggressive, in English, very clearly, with her finger in my chest. The neighbor next door lived to be 102, by the way. Could be a coincidence. Probably not.

This focaccia? Different planet. Different SOLAR SYSTEM. The crust shatters when you tear it. The inside is pillowy, it's airy, it's got holes the size of golf balls — big, beautiful holes, the kind of holes Italian nonnas dream about — and the top has those gorgeous little dimples filled with olive oil, flaky salt, and rosemary. You make this once and you will never go back to a sad supermarket loaf again. Hands down. Not even close.

Ingredients

500 gbread flour(bread flour, not all-purpose, we are not playing games)
400 gwarm water (around 95F)
1 tspinstant yeast
10 gkosher salt
1/4 cup, plus more for the pan and topextra-virgin olive oil(the good stuff, the green peppery stuff)
2 tbspfresh rosemary, leaves picked
1 tbspflaky sea salt(Maldon if you have it, no table salt, table salt is for amateurs)

Steps

1
In a large bowl, whisk the warm water with the yeast until dissolved. Add the bread flour and kosher salt. Mix with a wet hand or spatula until no dry flour remains — the dough will be very wet and shaggy.
2
Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the dough, turn to coat, then cover tightly. Refrigerate 12-24 hours.
3
Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a 9x13-inch metal baking pan and tilt to coat the bottom and sides.
4
Scrape the cold dough into the pan. Drizzle the top with another tablespoon of olive oil and gently fold the dough over itself a few times into a rough rectangle.
5
Let the dough rise at room temperature, uncovered, for 3-4 hours until puffy, pillowy, and nearly filling the pan.
6
Heat the oven to 450F with a rack in the middle.
7
Oil your fingertips and press them straight down into the dough to create deep dimples across the entire surface. Push all the way to the bottom of the pan — be aggressive.
8
Drizzle generously with more olive oil so it pools in the dimples. Scatter the rosemary leaves and flaky salt evenly over the top.
9
Bake 22-28 minutes until the top is deeply golden brown and the bottom is crisp (lift a corner with a spatula to check).
10
Cool in the pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack so the bottom stays crisp. Slice into squares and serve warm or at room temperature.

One more thing

That's the bread. You'll cut it into squares — big squares, generous squares, life is short — and you'll eat it warm, dipped in more olive oil and maybe a little balsamic, and you will look around your kitchen and realize you have ASCENDED. People will text you. They'll want the recipe. You can tell them or you can be mysterious about it, like a wizard, a hairy little focaccia wizard with secrets. Your call. Either way, the best focaccia of your life just came out of YOUR oven. Don't tell your friends. Keep this one for yourself.