Recipes

Focaccia With Garlic Confit & Rosemary

December 20, 2022

Christmas celebrations and delectable meals are almost a tradition in itself. Focaccia is one of many Christmas dishes that goes well with almost everything. Just like brioche bread, it can be sweet or savoury.

When it comes to enjoying focaccia bread, this versatile treat can be enjoyed with a variety of companions like soups, meat, vegetables, pasta, sausage, and any other dish. [Go straight to recipe]

If you want to make this year’s Christmas more festive, we have an incredibly flavourful Focaccia With Garlic Confit And Rosemary recipe that could enliven your Christmas feast.

How To Dimple Focaccia

While most bread has a domed structure, it’s different for focaccia. Focaccia is known for its flat surface.

Even though it uses similar ingredients and techniques to regular bread, a focaccia recipe yields a delicious flatbread with a golden brown and crispy outside.

A focaccia's signature look is its dimples on the top. Those dimples are due to the “dimpling” process where the dough is gently pressed with fingers so that it creates little indentations.

These dimples aren’t simply for aesthetic purposes — they also have an important role in deflation reducing the air. When we want flatbread, it is important to keep the dough from rising.

One of the ways to prevent rising dough is by poking the dough with your fingers, so it forms dimples that will result in flatter bread when you bake it.

The ideal method to dimple your focaccia is first, you can drizzle olive oil all over the top or wet your fingers with it.

Then, gently push your fingers into the dough. Make sure you are not poking it all the way down as it will create leaks.

Dimpling your focaccia can also intensify the flavour of your focaccia since the olive oil is being pushed deeper into the dough.

Do I Need A Mixer For Making Focaccia?

Kneading is the process in a focaccia bread recipe that allows the bread to have the perfect structure. It is a technique in making the dough come together, a technique which includes stretching and increasing the gluten contained in the dough.

If you want a quick and easy kneading process, an electric stand mixer will be immensely helpful.

However, kneading by hand is fun too! All you have to do is stretch, fold, and rotate your dough repeatedly until the dough becomes smooth and elastic..

For a complete step-by-step kneading of the dough with your bare hands, you can learn it here.

Hate kneading? Try This No Knead Cinnamon Nutmeg Raisin Bread.

Making Your Unique Focaccia

Focaccias can be adorned with different toppings and flavours to make your own unique bread.

If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, you can top your focaccia with chocolate chips, maple syrup, dried berries, powdered or even granulated sugar.

Meanwhile, when it comes to making savoury focaccia, there are many more options.

The most famous of all is the garlic and cheese focaccia recipe which includes freshly baked focaccia bread topped with garlic, butter, herbs, and parsley. Here's one we made with rosemary and olives!

There are also other combinations, like rosemary potato, veggies focaccia, black olives, caramelised onion, broccoli, mozzarella sandwich, and our authentic Christmas focaccia: garlic confit and rosemary.

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Focaccia with Garlic Confit and Rosemary

Yield: 30cm x 30cm pan / 10-12 servings

Ingredients

Garlic Confit

3 heads of garlic
100g extra virgin olive oil*

Focaccia Dough

600g bread flour
450ml warm water
6g salt
20g extra virgin olive oil*
5g yeast
Extra olive oil for greasing the bowl

For Topping

Garlic confit** (see above)
Flaky salt
Fresh rosemary

Note:
*This can be replaced with any vegetable oil, but extra virgin olive oil will give the focaccia more intense flavors.
**You can infuse chili flakes into the garlic confit to add some heat to your focaccia.

Directions

Garlic Confit

Preheat your oven to 150°C.
Crush your garlic and remove the skin.
In an oven-safe dish, submerge the garlic in olive oil. You may add in some rosemary, if desired. Roast in the oven for 30 - 45 minutes or until golden brown.
You can also do this on a stove: In a saucepan, submerge the crushed garlic in 100g olive oil and let it simmer on low heat for 30 to 45 minutes. Occasionally remove the pan from heat to prevent it from boiling. Once the garlic has slightly browned, remove it from the heat and let it cool at room temperature.
Set aside in an airtight container.

Notes:

If you don’t want large chunks of garlic on your focaccia, slightly tear the garlic cloves into smaller bits after you remove it from the heat.
If you are resting your focaccia dough overnight, transfer the garlic cloves into an airtight container after they’ve cooled down and store it in the fridge.

Focaccia Dough

In a bowl, combine and stir yeast with 450g of warm water and let it bloom for about 5 minutes. This step is to make sure your yeast is active and alive. if it is, it should be foaming and bubbling by the first couple of minutes. While optional, instant yeast can benefit from this process too.
In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, add the bread flour and salt, and whisk the dry ingredients together to distribute evenly.
Add the yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and mix using the dough hook attachment on low speed for around 5 minutes or until the liquid is well-incorporated with the dry ingredients.
Once everything is well combined, increase the speed to medium and gradually add in the olive oil. Keep mixing for another 5 minutes or until the dough is not sticking to the side of your bowl.
Prepare a large bowl and generously grease it with olive oil.
As the dough will be very sticky and slightly wet, grease your hand with oil before handling the dough, and transfer your dough into the greased bowl. Cover it with cling wrap or a damp towel and let it rest at room temperature for at least an hour or until doubled in size.
Remove the plastic wrap and gently fold the dough from the corners to the inside by grabbing the sides of the dough. Rotate the bowl 180 degrees and repeat until you fold all sides of the dough.
Gently stretch the dough to the edge of the pan — If you find the dough resisting, let it rest for 10-15 minutes before continuing. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it proof for 1 more hour.***

Baking

Preheat your oven to 200°C ~20 minutes before it’s ready to bake.
Prepare your baking pan and heavily grease it with olive oil.
Dimple your dough — at this step, you are going to create dimples in your dough by gently pushing your fingers into the dough. Make sure not to poke all the way through.
Gently drizzle the garlic confit and the oil, and sprinkle some fresh rosemary and flaky sea salt on top of your focaccia.
Bake in the middle rack of your oven for 20 - 25 minutes, or until it’s golden brown.
Take the focaccia out of the oven and let it sit at room temperature for a couple of minutes. Transfer the baked focaccia to a cooling rack to prevent the bottom from getting soggy.

Storage/Serving notes: Lasts up to three days. Store it in an airtight container at room temperature. Can be served on its own or dipped in an olive oil and parmesan combo. This is also a great substitute to your regular sandwich bread.

Addtional notes***: At Step 8 of making the focaccia, you can let the dough rest up to 24 hours.

Instructions: In the same greased bowl as before, shape your dough into a ball and cover your bowl using plastic wrap. Let your dough slowly rise in the fridge overnight or up to 24 hours; this will give your dough more time to ferment and, therefore, develop more structure and flavors. Make sure you grease your plastic wrap to prevent it from sticking to the dough. If doing this, store garlic confit in the fridge in an airtight container.

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