Sourdough Focaccia Bread Recipe

("faux-caccia" to you purists!)

This easy and delicious bread recipe is one that I make weekly. The pillowy dough looks impressive and time-consuming, but is actually incredibly easy and can be whipped together in just a few steps!

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What starts out as a sloppy, wet mess of a batter-like bread dough ends up as a well-structured flat bread that's crispy and crusty on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

(love my new ceramic kitchenaid bowl!)

First off, I’ll say that I prefer to measure my ingredients by weighing them, but if you don’t have a kitchen scale that can weigh in grams, then I’ll leave the cups/tablespoons conversion in the printable recipe below.

(here's the kitchen scale we use.)

The next thing to note is that this recipe uses sourdough starter. I’ve had the best luck with starter that’s been fed the night before and is vivacious and bubbly but I’ve also made this recipe with freshly-fed as well as “hungry” starter with satisfactory results. (That 8-12 hours of feeding is what really produces those instagram-worthy air bubbles that take this recipe over the top. However, like most areas of my life, being instagram-worthy isn’t really my main goal here so timing the feeding of your sourdough starter isn’t imperative.)

And for those who don’t have ANY sourdough starter, substitute 1 tsp of dry active yeast, 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tbs of warm water with the starter component in this recipe and you’ll still end up with some pretty tasty focaccia minus the flavor and health benefits of using sourdough

Finally, yes…. You see that right. There is a LOT of oil in this recipe. I use olive oil for both the bottom of the pan as well as on the top (EVOO). This is what helps that crusty crunch form on the outside of the bread and it’s oh, so necessary. Cutting down on the oil essentially makes this a glorified pizza dough recipe which isn’t what we’re going for here (although this focaccia makes a great base for pizza or other topped-flatbread recipes!)

Love and Hibiscus Everything,