Fast Focaccia, finished.
Fast focaccia takes about 2 ½ hours from pitching the yeast to enjoying the first warm bite. And it’s really really good, thanks to plenty of olive oil and salt. Based on this NYT Cooking recipe with a couple of tweaks to make it even faster. Makes 1 focaccia, 9×13 inches.
Ingredients
1 ½ c lukewarm water (355 g)
1 t sugar
2 t yeast
3 T good olive oil
3 c all purpose flour (390 g)
2 t Kosher salt
Additional olive oil and salt (preferably Maldon flakes) for garnish
Fast Focaccia dough is way too slack for the usual step of poking indents with your finger.
Method: add sugar and yeast to lukewarm water in the bowl of a rotary mixer; stir to dissolve sugar. Rest for 5 minutes or so until yeast blooms; add 3 T olive oil then flour and 2 t Kosher salt in that order. Mix at first speed until ingredients are combined then second speed for 5 minutes, until the dough forms a cohesive, very sticky mass.
Prepare a second bowl by coating generously with olive oil. Using a spatula, scrape the very sticky dough into the bowl. Cover and rise in a warm place* for 1 hour, or until doubled. Line a 9×13 baking pan with parchment paper and coat generously with olive oil using a brush or rolled up paper towel. Transfer the dough to this plan using a spatula to get all of it. Cover and rise 30 minutes until the dough rises somewhat. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Bake the focaccia for 25 minutes or a bit longer, until golden brown but still soft and springy. Brush top with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt immediately after removing from oven. Cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then eat and enjoy.
*NYT offers a great trick for turning your microwave into a proofing box: put in a large cup of just-boiled water along with the bowl of dough.
Focaccia sandwich with some nice mortadella.
