Butter Focaccia Recipe (Savoury or Sweet Focaccia)

This versatile butter focaccia recipe is made with both extra virgin olive oil and (lots of) butter, making it super flavourful and rich.

I love making focaccia because it's the perfect lazy bread. No elbow grease for kneading needed: you just give it a few 'stretch and pull' sessions in the same bowl all the ingredients are mixed in.

I also like my focaccia a tiny, tiny bit sweet-leaning, making it ideal for both savoury sandwiches and sweet snacks.

The butter adds extra richness, but this does mean that the bread gets tough if you choose to store it in the fridge (which you might do if you're making sandwiches for later). But it goes back to being fluffy and soft when it comes back down to room temperature, so all you have to do is wait a bit before eating it rather than eating it cold.

My favourite sandwich to make with this super buttery focaccia is with spicy pesto, mozzarella (or burrata, if I'm feeling extra indulgent) and sliced deli meats. And my favourite sweet snack to make with it is an open sandwich slathered with pistachio cream and ricotta or mascarpone, and dotted with sliced strawberries.

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

Main Ingredients:

300g bread flour
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
220ml warm water
50g melted butter
2 tsp honey
30ml extra-virgin olive oil

Before Baking:

80g melted butter

Method:

1. Except for the olive oil, stir all the main ingredients together, scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave for 15 minutes. The dough will be very wet and sticky at this stage.

2. Uncover the dough, wet one hand with water, grab one side of the dough with your wet hand, stretch upwards and fold inwards. Turn the bowl 45° (a quarter turn), and repeat the stretch and fold. Do this until you've made your way the whole way round the bowl (stretching and folding four times), then cover and rest for another 15 minutes.

3. Uncover, repeat the four stretches and folds with a wet hand. Cover and let it rest for another 15 minutes.

4. Uncover and do a final set of stretches and folds, and drizzle over the olive oil. Smooth the oil over the top of the dough, and lift the dough up a little so the olive oil can also get underneath to help stop it from sticking. Now cover and either leave to proof for another hour or two until doubled in size, or place the bowl in the fridge to proof slowly overnight.

5. When you're ready to bake (after the same-day proof or the next day after refrigerating), evenly spread half of the melted extra butter around an 8x12" rectangular baking tin, and drop in your chilled dough. Stretch and fold it in a letter fold (in thirds, bringing the long ends towards the centre), flip it to place it fold-side down in the tin, and rotate it 90° so the rectangle of the dough is sitting lengthways/the same way as the tin).

6. Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise for one or two hours, or until the dough has at least doubled in size and is super puffy.

7. When you're nearly ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200°C.

8. Uncover the dough. If it doesn't fill all the corners of the tin, gently stretch it to fit. Drizzle over the remaining melted butter, poke deep dimples into the dough with your fingers, and bake for 20 minutes.

9. Let it cool before removing from the tin, cutting and eating.

Enjoy, and have fun.