The trick to making good focaccia

Focaccia is one of my favourite breads: glossy and golden on top thanks to the olive oil, but firm and crisp, with a chewy, aerated, oil-soaked crumb with a real spring. You should be able to squish a good focaccia with your hand and watch it slowly rise back up to its former glory.

Focaccia’s a brilliant bread to make if you’re a little nervous of yeast and dough: the ‘shaping’ of focaccia is far easier than that of a traditional loaf, or even a ciabatta or baguette. To make focaccia, you spread your dough out in a tin – an imprecise art – and then paddle it with your fingers, creating divots and dimples. When the dough has proved for its final time, you again dibble the dough with your fingertips, and then pour a generous quantity of olive oil over the top. No workbenches, no folding or rolling, no seams. Just chuck the dough into a tin, press it down, and the job’s done.

The trick to making good focaccia as a novice is a surprisingly simple one: use a relatively small, high-sided tin. This ensures that the dough has something to prove against, and spring from as it bakes, rather than the dough creeping and sprawling until it is so thin that it’s closer to a breadstick than the distinctive focaccia texture you’re going for. I use an 8 inch cake tin when I’m making it to this recipe, which results in a bread about an inch and a half high, that drinks in the olive oil poured onto it without becoming saturated and unwieldy to eat.

Although often served in place of other bread, or as part of antipasti, dunked in vinegar and more oil, focaccia makes a superior base for a sandwich, packed full of flavour, but with structural integrity.