Focaccia w/ Dried Figs Recipe

Ok, let's get out of the way that making your own focaccia is hard. It's not. It's easy, and yes it requires practice but there is very little that can go wrong in mixing flour, water, oil and yeast. So let's give this a go, you will not regret it!

Ingredients

For the dough:
600g Very Strong Flour (Protein content over 13%)
350g Spring Water
50g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
10g fine Salt
5g Dried Yeast

Topping:
2 branches of fresh Rosemary
15g Spring Water
20g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Coarse Salt
10 Dried Figs

Method

Mix the yeast with 100g water in a glass, and let rest for 10 minutes or longer while you proceed

Mix 300g water, 50g oil, 60g flour, 10g fine salt in a bowl. Sift the rest of the flour slowly for at least 5 minutes while stirring. Add the mix of water and yeast.

Keep kneading for at least 20 more minutes, at the beginning it will look like a wet mess, this is normal... keep pinching the dough from the side, pull it to the center, press and repeat for at least 20 minutes. No cheating. Trust us on this!

Cover the bowl and let it raise for about 2 hours or more in winter, until it puffs up and doubled/tripled in size.

Oil a tray and stretch the dough with your fingertips up to about 1 inch high. Let it rest 30 more minutes, in the meanwhile preheat your oven to 220°C.

Shake water and olive oil in a closed jar until fully mixed. This is to make sure the top of your focaccia remain moist and soft. Make holes in the focaccia with your fingers using a cork-screwing motion. 

Quickly add coarse salt and rosemary to taste and of course, the figs in some of the holes. Do leave some empty ones though.

Give a good last shake to your water/olive oil mix and pour on the focaccia, make sure it is all covered (but not drowning).

Put straight away in the oven before the water and olive oil start splitting, and bake for about 10 minutes or until gold on top. Let rest 10 minutes to cool down a bit, and enjoy with cheese, truffle sauce, charcuteries and more!