Tags: bread - vegetarian
Active Time: 30 minutes
Passive Time: 2 hours + overnight
Serves: 8

Super easy bread that takes no effort to make and is absolutely delicious

Bon Appetit

• Active dry yeast: one 1/4 oz envelope (2 1/4 tsp)
• Honey: 2 tsp
• Water: 2 1/4 cups, lukewarm
  
  
• All-purpose flour: 625 g (5 cups)
• Kosher salt: 1 tbsp + some to sprinkle on top
  
  
• Olive oil: 6 tbsp, divided
  
  
• Butter: 4 tbsp unsalted, plus some to grease pan
• Garlic: 2 - 4 cloves

• I have used kosher salt to sprinkle on top. Bon Appetit says to use flaky sea salt, but kosher salt works fine
• You can substitute the 1 tbsp kosher salt for 5 tsp table salt, but you can't use table salt to sprinkle on top
• I've made it without garlic butter and it's still fantastic - slightly less savory. Don't use more than 4 cloves; I used 6 once and it was WAY overkill
• I've made it with instant yeast instead of active dry yeast. I mixed together in one bowl lukewarm water and honey, and in another bowl the instant yeast, flour, and salt. Then I added the water bowl to the flour bowl. I used 75% of the volume for the instant yeast, which works out to 1 11/16 tsp (1 3/4 tsp is probably fine). It comes out the same as far as I can tell
• It's best eaten day of, but you can store in a freezer then reheat at 300F on a baking dish

1. Whisk yeast, honey, and water together in a medium bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. It should get foamy/creamy - if this doesn't happen, your yeast is dead and you should try again before proceeding. This could be bad yeast or incorrect temperature water - I've found about 100-110F works best
2. Add flour and salt; mix with rubber spatula until a very wet, shaggy dough forms and there are no dry streaks left
3. Put 4 tbsp olive oil in a very large bowl. Put the dough into this bowl, turn to coat in olive oil, cover with a silicone lid or plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight (8 - 24 hours). It's going to rise a lot - make sure your bowl is large enough!
4. Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish for a thick focaccia, or an 18 x 13 inch rimmed baking sheet for a thinner, crispier focaccia. Pour 1 tbsp olive oil into center of pan. Keeping the dough in the bowl, use 2 forks to gather up the edges of the dough furthest from you and fold it in towards the center. Turn the bowl 90 degrees, repeat, and do this until you've folded 4 times. You are aiming to deflate the dough while forming a rough ball. Transfer the dough to your prepared pan, pouring any leftover oil from the bowl on top of the dough. Let rise, uncovered, in a dry warm spot until doubled in size - at least 90 minutes and up to 4 hours
5. Place a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat to 450F. To see if the dough is ready, poke it - it should spring back slowly, leaving a small visible indentation. If it springs back quickly, it's not ready. If the dough is ready but you don't want to bake it yet, refrigerate up to an hour. Gently stretch the dough to fill your pan (in the 9 x 13 inch pan, this shouldn't be much; in the larger pan, you'll probably have to stretch it a bit)
6. Dimple the focaccia all over like you're aggressively playing the piano, creating very deep impressions - reach your fingers all the way to the bottom of the pan
7. Pour 1 tbsp olive oil over it, sprinkle with kosher or sea salt, and bake until golden brown all over, 20 - 35 minutes
8. When ready to serve, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Microplane garlic into the butter and cook, stirring often, until garlic is lightly toasted, about 30 - 45 seconds
9. Brush garlic butter over the top of the focaccia and serve