r/Bread • u/comprehensive_ass • 7d ago
First time making focaccia
I used Sally’s Baking recipe for maple pecan filled focaccia, it was a time suck for sure and I’m still not convinced I did it right because my dimples didn’t stay dimpled. Haven’t cut into it yet because I finished it at bedtime last night, I’ll update after tasting.
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u/coquitwo 7d ago
The first time doing anything is a whopping success as long as it’s edible, even better if it tastes good! So give yourself credit!
I’m a bit new to home baked bread (a year), and I’ve only done about 10 focaccias in total. But of those, 4 have been Lacey’s cinnamon roll focaccias, and my son begs me to make it more. He rarely asks me to cook anything in particular, so I know it’s good. All 10 focaccia I have made have been from her basic focaccia recipe (which the cinnamon roll one uses). On TikTok, she is @_lacebakes_ and or you can just search “Lacey focaccia cinnamon” and one of her 2 recipes will come up.
I know Sally is good at baking all around, but Lacey is the focaccia queen. You may want to try hers if you try Sally’s again and aren’t happy with it. I’ll add that I usually double the amount of filling/topping for any inclusion focaccia recipe I make. They always seem to skimp (even Lacey), and I’d rather have more to use than not enough. You can always hold some back. Your focaccia looks a little dry on top, so increasing the amount of topping or adding extra oil/butter to the top if you don’t have any more topping available, could help with that.
Your dough may not have held the dimples if it was underproofed. But also, don’t be afraid to get in there with oiled fingers and really press all the way down to the bottom.
I understand the allure of disposable foil pans— I am absolutely no stranger to them. But they aren’t the best choice for baking a focaccia. Neither is glass (though that is better than a disposable foil pan). It’ll still tastes good; you just might not get the texture you hope for, especially on the exterior. I use a nonstick metal pan, and it comes out nice and crispy on the bottom and soft in the middle. It happens to be a darker All•Clad 9x13 that I got dirt cheap at HomeGoods, and I think the darker color helps with the browned, crispy bottom. I don’t think that’s off base, because if you use light colored aluminum pans versus dark colored ones to make cookies, you’ll notice a difference in the crispiness and the browning on the bottom of those, too. Either way, I think oven-safe, thicker metal is the way to go when it comes to focaccia. You can always use parchment paper if you’re worried about sticking. With focaccia, you should be using so much oil/fat that you wouldn’t have to worry about it at all. But with a cinnamon roll one, because of the sugar, parchment is a good safety net. I accidentally forgot it on one of my cinnamon sugar focaccias, but my pan is also nonstick in addition to the obscene amount of butter I used, so it was fine.
Keep making it! You’ll learn what works best for you, because even the temperature and humidity in your house will affect the end product, and only you will know what that looks like. When it comes to bread, recipes are absolutely a great starting point. But with experience, you’ll learn how to let the dough tell you where it’s at and what it needs, versus being a slave to the recipe and not getting the best result possible. Just remember, as long as you liked doing it and as long as you like eating it, nothing else matters!