Ingredients

(Makes a 25x20cm focaccia)

Focaccia

1 & 1/2 cups warm water

1 tsp dried yeast

3 Tbsp milk

3 Tbsp olive oil

3 cups flour

2 tsp salt

50g butter

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 Tbsp picked rosemary leaves

Top it or make it a sando

200g buffalo mozzarella

200g mortadella

1/2 cup pistachio pesto

Prep It

Place warm water in a large bowl and sprinkle in yeast. Set aside for about 10 minutes to let the yeast do its thing. It should go frothy. Sometimes it doesn’t, just check the use by date before you use it and you should be fine.

Add milk, olive oil, flour and salt and mix with a spoon, until it forms a kind of shaggy dough. Set aside covered with a tea towel for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes we need to perform the first set of stretch and folds. Dampen your hands with water and reach underneath one side of the dough. Lift the dough up stretching it up and fold it over top of the dough in the bowl. Give the bowl a quarter turn and stretch and fold it again. Repeat this process, until you make it all the way round the bowl (4 times).

Cover the dough again and leave it to rest for 1 hour before stretching and folding the dough again. Let it sit for an hour, stretch and fold once more and then she’s ready to go into the fridge.

Drizzle a good amount of olive oil over and around the dough. Cover and pop it in the fridge overnight. Alternatively for a quickie focaccia, allow it to prove for 2 hours before continuing on.

Finish It

Preheat oven to 220°C.

Line a 20x25cm with baking paper and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I use baking paper to start because this dough is quite wet. It gets very sticky and I have butchered many a focaccia trying to scrape it out of the baking dish. We remove the paper later to crisp the bottom so all good.

Get your dough out of the fridge and perform 1 last set of stretch and folds. Place the dough, seam side down on your baking tray and allow to rest for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes press the dough out to the edges of the tray. If it springs back leave it to rest for a little longer. Rest for a further 30 minutes.

Bake It

Mince garlic and place in a small pot with the rosemary and butter over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, until melted.

Pour it all over the focaccia and use your fingers to press down into the dough to create dimples for the butter to pool in.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove from oven and carefully slide the paper out and away. Return the focaccia to the oven but on the bottom shelf now and bake for a further 5 minutes, until bread is oh so golden brown on the top and bottom and cooked through.

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

To finish ensure your mozzarella, mortadella and pesto is room temp and when bread has cooled slice through the middle and fill. You could also just put these toppings all over the top and eat it like a pizza!

Eat It!