When focaccia bread is made well, its amazing. I love the strong taste of the olive oil mixed into the dough and the gorgeous mix of herbs. In this recipe I used a mix of garlic, oregano and rosemary for the perfect, light focaccia dough and crisp golden crust.
One of the best things about using focaccia as a base for pizza is that, because it is a nice heavy bread, it’s really holds a lot of weight. So you can really load it up with your favourite toppings without worrying whether the base will hold.
I used a simple mixture of homemade marinara (using this recipe), olives, maitake mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and Parmesan, with some arugula leaves sprinkles over the top, for a bright, vibrant and super tasty pizza!
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
- 1/4 tsp cracked black pepper
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 packet dried yeast
- 2 cups of all purpose flour (plus extra for kneading)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup marinara sauce
- 1/2 oz sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 2 oz maitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
- 10 black olives, halved
- 1 oz grated Parmesan
- 2 oz mozzarella, cut into slices
Method
- Begin by placing a small saucepan on a medium heat and pouring in the olive oil. When it is hot, add in the garlic, oregano, rosemary and black pepper and fry for 3 minutes, until the herbs are fragrant, then remove from the heat and leave to one side.
- In a large bowl, pour in the warm water and yeast, give it a good stir and leave for a couple of minutes.
- Next, sieve in half of the flour and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil mix from the saucepan. Stir until combined, then follow with the rest of the flour and salt and stir until combined.
- Remove the dough from the bowl and place onto a floured surface. Knead the dough for around 2 minutes, until it becomes smooth and elastic. IF the dough becomes too sticky whilst kneading, add a little more flour as you go.
- Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover with a damp towel. Leave to rise for 1 hour (you can leave it for longer if you want/need to).
- 10 minutes before the dough has finished rising, preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit / 200 Celsius.
- Punch the dough down and remove it from the bowl, placing it onto a large rectangular greased oven tray and press the dough outwards, so that it fills the surface of the oven tray.
- Pour the remaining olive oil mixture over the dough and place your oven tray into the oven, baking the foccacia for around 15 minutes.
- Remove the foccacia bread from the oven and pour over the marinara sauce, spreading it evenly.
- Add on all of the other toppings and place the pizza back into the oven for 5-8 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the cheese has melted.
Mistyanity says
Hi! Really love your recipes even though i’m not pescetarian.