Speedy focaccia: pro and cons

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The lockdown has been an occasion to dedicate some time to baking. Even myself has attempted to grow LI.CO.LI, the liquid sourdough (with a poor outcome, though, but that’s a topic for another post!), not to mention baking brioches, pizza, focaccia and so on. Not bad, eh?

So, it ended up that, after weeks of baking, a warm Tuesday afternoon I lifted my head from the pc and had a glance to the clock: “6 pm! And the bread? We are going to have dinner soon and we have no bread (a drama for most of the Italians)”. Thus, I googled something that I wouldn’t ever conceived even conceptually: “quick focaccia”. The oxymoron of all oxymorons. With a bit of skepticism, I opened the recipe from the first link (from the Italian blog allacciate il grembiule) and got convinced: this evening I’ll make a speedy focaccia!

How did it go? Well, the recipe is really way faster than mine and in about hour it produces a focaccia that is not bad at all. I discovered then that the recipe is a version of the popular focaccia Locatelli. Briefly, the recipe doesn’t call for kneading, just a quick stirring of the ingredients. The dough is very sticky and the rising time kept to minimal (30-40 min).

Below the recipe from the blog allacciate il grembiule, with my changes, followed by my considerations.

Speedy focaccia

(Doses for a small oven pan of focaccia)

  • 500 g of flour (all purpose in my case, better to use a stronger one though)

  • 400 g of water

  • 2 table spoons of olive oil

  • 5 g of salt

  • 5 g of dehydrated yeast

Rehydrate the yeast in 200 g of lukewarm water. Put the flour, the remaining 200 g of water, 2 table spoons of oil and the salt in a standing mixer bowl. Add eventually the yeast dissolved into water. Stir all the ingredient by using the leaf-shaped hook, at low speed (do not mix for too long). Let the dough rest for 10 min.

After this time, pour the dough on an oven pan covered with parchment paper. Pour and a bit of oil on the top and spread the dough with your hands, making sure to well distribute the oil on the surface. Let it rise for 30 min.

In the meanwhile, preheat the oven at 210 C. Bake the focaccia for 30-35 min.

Pro

  • The procedure is really fast and allows obtaining a decent focaccia. A good idea if, like me, you realize you do not have any bread at 6-7 pm! :P (or if you end up having the famous last-minute guests! :D)

  • The taste is good, even if the yeast flavour is a bit too pronounced.

Cons

  • Due to the reduced rising time and no-kneading (=low production of gluten mass), the final product doesn’t develop properly and is less airy.

  • The dough is not hard too digest, but with a longer rest time, the product can definitely improve.

  • The focaccia doesn’t last long (they day after it is already gummy), because of the short procedure. If you do not eat all the focaccia on the same day, I recommend freezing it.

  • Aromatic bouquet…you wish! :)

More about bread baking? I wrote a few post about that…here, here and here :)