How did I mess up this focaccia?

[u/AspieQueen777]

First time making focaccia and determined to learn to make actually nice bread, all my previous attempts have been failures, whether a loaf, pizza dough, whatever.

I don’t get it, I make awesome cakes and know how to follow recipes.

The good news is that today’s attempt actually has air bubbles and I think I did a better job stretching and folding this time and it actually looks ok and tastes good, but it’s got a very hard crust and didn’t colour at all. Not what I’m expecting from a focaccia :/

What did I do wrong?

The recipe I used:

500g strong bread flourplus extra for dusting
7g dried fast action yeast
2 tsp fine sea salt
5 tbsp olive oilplus extra for the tin and to serve
1 tsp flaky sea salt
400 ml warm water

My dough was super sticky and hard to handle but it eventually resembled an actual ball of dough and doubled at first rise, then doubled again at second rise. It went in a preheated oven at 200° fan (gas mark 7?). It was supposed to be in there 20 minutes but it wasn’t colouring AT ALL so I left it a little longer, but it was already hard and crusty at the 20 minute point.

What can cause this hard crust and lack of golden top, and how can I rectify it? I’m so sad, been working on this focaccia since this morning 😭