Super Easy Rosemary Focaccia Bread

Baking bread is nowhere near as difficult as it seems. This easy rosemary Focaccia bread is so simple and tastes amazing. You’ll never buy store bought focaccia again once you’ve made your own.

Why you’ll love this focaccia recipe

• If you’ve never made bread before then focacia is the place to start, it’s so easy and it’ll have you hooked!
• The taste, this rosemary focaccia is packed with flavour and goes as well with a bowl of soup as it does with cheese or just with a glass of wine.
• This is a really quick bread to make, your hands-on time is only about 10 minutes.
• Focaccia is the perfect bread for entertaining, looks and tastes great and as if you’ve taken ages to prepare it!

I was never a keen bread maker. All that kneading and waiting about, just couldn’t be bothered with it.

Then I started making a few different types of bread and got hooked. This super easy rosemary focaccia was one of the first breads I tried and now I make focaccia at least once a week.

Focaccia and olive oil

Oil and salt are two important components of focaccia. There is oil and salt in the dough mix itself. But the magic happens when you paint on some extra olive oil and add salt to the outside prior to baking.

Wondered what those little dents in focaccia were for? They capture the oil and salt and make the bread fairly sing with flavour.

Pro tip!

Why not use this homemade garlic infused olive oil to get even more fabulous flavour into your focaccia.

Ingredients for this easy focaccia bread

• 500g strong flour
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 7g active yeast powder
• 350ml warm water
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

Pro tip!

Do you have to use strong bread flour to make focaccia?

No, yoou can use standard plain flour instead if that is all you have to hand.

How to make focaccia bread

• Preheat oven to 200C and get a baking tray out
• In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast
• Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and add half the warm water and bring everything together with a wooden spoon to form a dough
• Keep adding water, you probably won’t need all of it, you want the dough workable and a bit sticky but not sloppy
• Tip out on to a floured surface and knead by thumping it down, turning, folding and thumping. Keep doing this for 5 minutes
• Wipe round the inside of the bowl with olive oil and pop in the dough and cover with a clean tea towel
• Set aside to rise in a warm place for an hour
• Tip it out and knock out air just once then place on baking tray and flatten and stretch into a rectangle about 1cm deep
• Leave it again this time for just half an hour
• Mark with your index finger all over in rows and paint the bread with olive oil, it will pool nicely into the little finger dents
• Sprinkle liberally with sea salt crystals and chopped fresh rosemary
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes till golden
• Drizzle on more oil and salt crystals while still warm

Serving Focaccia

Best served still warm from the oven.

I love focaccia with a bowl of soup, they go together perfectly.

Serve it with stews to mop up all that aromatic gravy.

And of course serve your rosemary focaccia with a cheeseboard or anti pasti platter.

Can you freeze focaccia?

Yes you can freeze the pre-cooked dough in plastic bag to bake another day. Or freeze a cooled baked loaf of focaccia bread well wrapped in baking parchment and clingfilm/plastic for up to a month.

Here are some other bread recipes you might like to try (they’re all dead easy, promise!);

Super Easy Guinness Bread

How to make traditional Scottish soda bread

Simple braided bread rolls

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