I recently saw a neighbor post a bout a popup bake sale on her porch each week. How cool I thought?
The fun? trick is that it goes live the sunday before the next saturday at 9am. You buy and prepay and pick it up at your leisure the next week. She had this cool chili crisp focaccia, and i was pumped. We were checking out of an air b-n-b and I didn’t see the text to go buy till about 20 min after go live. The focaccia that looked so amazing was already completely sold out.. Well, that meant 1 thing… I’ll just make my own, i don’t need to click on a link and then have to go walk somewhere…
To be clear, i have never made focaccia, but really i love bread and why not, let’s try it!
I found the recipe, on hangryinlove. I will say some of the instructions lacked a little and were confusing and we ended up with 2 full sets of focaccia due to concern over some of it! I’ll add clarity where i think it is needed.
This is actually a very easy recipe, promise! I can get pretty expensive if you use good olive oil!
As i mentioned we ended up with 2 full batches. There is a call for 5 cups of flour. I thought maybe i got confused, i was really focussed on measuring… but when i got to the line of the “dough should be shaggy” – wtf? It just looked very gooie/soupie/liquidy and loose. Maybe i didn’t get the last cup of flour in? I think the real problem was i was using a dough hook – use the spatula like it says.
So i set that batch to rise and went and started another batch, just to make sure!
Another fun instruction – “Dimple dough all over with your fingers like you’re playing piano. Be sure to push your fingers all the way to the bottom of the pan as you dimple.” – again wtf? if playing the piano is gently, then how do you push all the way to the bottom?
A change I would make in the future would be to incorporate the chili crisp in the dough not just on top cause it can just fall off. And brushing on the butter mixture also does push the existing chili crisp off.
Chil crisp focaccia
- jelly pan
- large bowl
- 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
- 5 cups AP flour
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 8 Tbsp olive oil (divided + more for hands)
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter + more for pan
- Flaky sea salt
- 4 Tbsp chili crisp (divided)
- In a large bowl, whisk together yeast, honey, and water.
- Let sit for 5 minutes, or until the yeast activates (becomes puffy).
- Add flour and salt.
- Mix with spatula until dough is “shaggy” and no dry flour is visible. (loose)
- Pour 4 Tbsp olive oil into another large bowl. Transfer dough to bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with lid or plastic wrap and let rise for at least 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Generously butter a 13×9” pan until bottom and sides are coated.
- Pour 3 Tbsp olive oil in center of pan. – tip the pan and move the oil so it covers the whole bottom
- Using two forks, pull edges of dough away from edges of bowl. Give bowl a quarter turn. Repeat forking and quarter turn three more times.
- Transfer dough to pan. Pour any leftover oil from bowl onto dough.
- Let dough rise in pan uncovered for another 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Place a rack in middle of oven. Preheat to 450ºF.
- Drizzle more oil over top of dough and top with 2 Tbsp chili crisp.
- Dimple dough all over with your fingers. Be sure to push your fingers all the way to the bottom of the pan as you dimple.
- Drizzle 1 Tbsp olive oil over top of dough then sprinkle with sea salt. Bake until golden brown all over, about 20-30 minutes.
- When ready to serve focaccia—In a small pot over medium heat, add butter and 2 Tbsp chili crisp. Whisk together until well-combined. Brush evenly over top of focaccia. Slice into squares. Enjoy!
Verdict:
Fun recipe to make, A LOT of bread!!
I did have to call in the neighbors, they didn’t take enough!
We will be eating sandwiches for the week!
I like that this recipe is pretty versatile, definitely the double rise means you have to plan ahead, and if your yeast is not super fresh you need extra rise time!
If you try this let me know what you think!!
