Focaccia Bread

THIS DOUGH SITS FOR AT LEAST 8 HOURS (SO MAKE THE NIGHT BEFORE).

When I served this bread, Scott told me I had found something special. That's how good it was! I've made it twice now and think it is going to be a regular at our house. Everyone LOVED it! We are also fans of the focaccia bread at Firehouse Pizzeria, which is cheese stuffed, and now I can make a copy cat version of that AT HOME! WOOT! To see the original recipe, click here:

https://lilluna.com/focaccia-bread/

Focaccia Bread

Dough has to sit for 8 hours or overnight.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast. (Whisking the flour, salt and yeast helps distribute everything so you don't end up with clumps of salt or yeast in the dough and cuts down on mixing time once you add the water which helps not build up too much gluten.) 
2. Add the warm water, and stir just enough to form a soft and sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or up to 24 hours. (Making it the night/day before you want to serve it is perfect.)
3. After the dough has chilled for at least 8 hours, gently shape the dough into a ball with your hands. Pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the bottom of an 8 inch cake pan (no bigger than 8 inches is important) and spread it to cover the interior surfaces of the pan. 
4. Place the ball of dough in the center of the pan, pat down just a bit, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature for 2 hours, or until the dough has expanded to nearly fill the cake pan.
5. Toward the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 450 (400 for convection). Remove the plastic wrap from the pan. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the dough first, then press your fingers down into the dough, pushing to the bottom of the pan. Repeat until the entire surface of the dough is covered in deep dimples. Press the dough towards the edge of the pan if it didn't quite spread all the way. Sprinkle with the oregano, basil (or Italian Seasoning) and sea salt.
6. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp. (20 minutes at 400 convection in my oven was perfect!)

As you can see, this dough is really shaggy. I just left it like this and then covered it with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight. You could also clean out the bowl, grease it with some olive oil and put the dough back in before covering and putting it in the fridge, but it doesn't really need it.

Done!

My first attempt to do "cheese-stuffed" bread...

It's a little hard to see, but there is a line of cheese in the middle of this slice.

I bought a small package of pre-shredded mozzarella for this (I think it was a 2-cup package) and didn't want to "over cheese" things... so I used about 2/3-3/4 of the package. I should have known better with our family, ha ha, because next time I wouldn't hesitate to use the entire package of cheese. The hardest part about stuffing the bread was trying to slice the entire loaf while still warm... so I think it would be helpful to make this bread either the day before or earlier in the day so it can completely cool... then slice, put the bottom back into the baking pan, top with cheese, then replace the top piece of bread, cover with foil, and put the entire thing back into a hot oven for about 5 minutes just to melt the cheese. It would also be excellent, I think, if I spread the bottom piece with some garlic butter before adding the cheese layer.