Everyone Loves Focaccia, featuring Samin Nosrat

And people really lost their minds about that.
It was the power of visual of like of soft light, for like beautiful photography.
From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers Know.
I'm Jessica Battalana, King Arthur's staff editor.
And I'm David Smartkin, King Arthur's editorial director.
And today we're talking about a bread that has captured the imagination of Americans everywhere.
Actually, people worldwide.
Wow, okay.
It is Faccia.
Pacaca.
Yeah.
You know, it's interesting because I don't think regular people, that is to say, people that don't work in a baking company, aren't thinking a lot about trends, right?
Trends in baking.
They're not hyper-focused on baking trends.
They're not like we are.
They're not laser focused on baking trends the way we are.
But we think about them a lot.
Yeah.
And I think one of the things that we noticed was that like Focaccia went from a bread that used to be just like a sort of fixture of the breadbasket of a certain type of mid-priced Italian restaurant of the 90s.
Yes.
This is very specific, yes.
To a bread that has really captivated bakers, including us.
And you see versions now all over the place.
Yeah.
It's become a real uh canvas, I would say.
Facaccia canvas for creativity.
And I think it's a great uh entry bread for people who are new to bread baking, which is one reason why it has sort of become so trendy, which is really what we're saying.
Focaccia is trendy, and we're gonna be exploring that today.
Uh I like what you said about focaccia like being in the breadbasket at a mid-priced restaurant.
Tell me a little bit more about that.
Oh, yeah.
Well, yes, I will tell you a little bit more about that.
And then so when I was growing up, the focaccia that I knew, I mean, the focaccia that we knew really until like I would say maybe like four or five years ago, was kind of like a low profile, you know, flat bread, maybe a half an inch tall, very tight crumb.
It often had, in my experience, like needles of dried rosemary on top.
You know, and at those restaurants, I remember it was sort of like the height of fashion.
They would bring you like the cruets of olive oil.
It was not bread that maybe Americans were super familiar with.
Yeah.
And I gotta say, I think that when people think of focaccia, now certainly when I hear the word focaccia, I think of something very different.
But I liked that bread back then.
I think I would still like it.
Well, and I actually think thinner, tighter focaccias.
Yeah, and we have recipes for that on our site.
And I think that it's probably like a little bit closer to the origins of this bread.
So, like, you know, there are like focaccia is a bread that we think of as Italian.
And even in Italy, like dating back to the Etruscans, like a very old bread.
Right.
But I think recent research has revealed that this bread or focaccia-like bread is actually even older than we originally thought, and that it likely dates back to like the Fertile Crescent.
Like, you know, this is an old bread.
It's a flatbread.
Right.
And those were the first breads.
And yeah, and it makes sense.
You can if you when you put in that context, you know, thinking about the journey focaccia has gone over the past many years.
Three million years.
Uh, you know, starting as a flatbread, it gives I mean it does make sense that uh progressively it has become sort of what it is now, which I think of something pretty tall, really open.
Yes.
Almost a wet interior.
Yes.
Um, something that has a very high hydration.
Yeah, I mean, I think the stereotype of Pikachu in 2026.
Yes, it's Pocaccia 2.0.
So I think it's it has in, you know, it it has evolved, right?
Like it and and it has evolved maybe away from its sort of roots.
And we were really inspired by that here.
Like we were seeing all of these beautiful, you know, I I remember seeing like Lodge Bread Company in Los Angeles.
Like they have like a truly absurdly thick focaccia.
It's like two inches thick and like gold and bubbly and olive oil on it.
Um, and you know, they weren't the only people to do it.
We were seeing like a lot of our favorite bakers around the country like messing around with this bread.
And we started messing around with it um for the big book of bread, sort of like, okay, we have existing focaccia recipes, sort of 1.0 on our site, but like what is a modern focaccia?
What is focaccia in 2025, which is when we rolled out our recipe of the year focaccia, and it was not the flat, you know, type down focaccia of the 90s.
No, it was something very different.
And when they started, so they the test kitchen took our big big book of bread formula when we started thinking about like will fo should we do focaccia as recipe of the year?
So they started with that, and I remember they were like tweaking various things, and you know, it would be funny to go back and look because I remember those first tests.
I was like, great, one and done, like this is great.
And like to go back and look at it now, like they were it, they were wild.
Like they were so big, so puffy.
They were so so like the size of a pillow.
Like it was like they they yes, they were.
So those listeners who have heard us talk about recipe of the year before, they know how much testing we do for this and what Jessica's talking about.
It's the initial test for our big embobbly focaccia, which was our recipe of the year 2025.
We had a recipe in the big book of bread, which I believe makes a full half sheet tray of focaccia, which is already big, and it was probably three times the total of what the recipe is in the big book of bread.
Because the question was what is the question we were trying to answer is what is focaccia in 2025?
And the answer is big.
Big.
And so they went really big.
And what my what and yes, you and I were like, this is great.
This is it.
We nailed it.
Our colleague Chris, I remember, came around the corner to taste and saw these enormous breads on the table.
And he had a look of pure beer in his eyes.
He was like, and he's the one who was like, I just have to tell you that if I made this for my family, we would panic.
Like we would not know how to get through this bread.
So we scaled back.
We scale back.
And the recipe now is big and bubbly focaccia on our site.
It's in it like a very polite eight by eight square pan.
I will say though, I am drawn to the half sheet pan of focaccia because I my one of my great loves is a focaccia sandwich.
And one of my greater loves is a slab sandwich, a party sandwich.
As you know, I forced you to make party sandwiches with me once, more than once, actually.
Uh and so I love that you could take a whole, you can do it with the eight by eight too, and make four sandwiches.
But for, you know, okay, maybe six.
But yes, yeah.
Yeah.
So I love, you know, like I love that sort of like large format bread.
To me, it's like, oh, it's exciting.
So it it varies, but the through line with focaccia always is that it is ultimately a flatbread, enriched, and um various stages of hydration.
But really, it if you have a it's a it's a panbread that's with olive oil and dimpled, yes, then you've probably got focaccia.
And you know, I was thinking about sort of like this focaccia renaissance that we are talking about, the sort of like moment where focaccia became a trend.
And I mean, you can't exactly timestamp it, but I think about, you know, when our friend Simeen Nasserat wrote salt fat acid heat and then subsequently did the Netflix series of the same name.
And on that Netflix series, there's a whole episode where she she makes this focaccia.
And it's the olive oil episode.
It's the olive oil episode, yes.
And she makes this focaccia, and she uh, I mean, it's a it's kind of a wild technique.
Like after the dough is in the pan, it gets like a salt brine, which seems crazy.
Like you have a bread dough, and then you're like just dumping salt to water on top of it.
Yep.
Uh, and I think that really like, you know, Samine's a beloved personality, and I think people love that, you know, that series and that episode in particular, and then everyone was making focaccia.
And I think the salt brining was a point of interest, and curious bakers, curious cooks were like, oh, I want to try that.
Yeah.
But I think a lot of people watched it and were inspired to make the focaccia because they were watching Samine's hands in this oily dough, making these bubbles as you dimple.
But you it's really fun to make focaccia.
It's really fun to make focaccia.
You just want to do it.
Yeah.
And you want to get your hands in there.
And it's easy.
Yeah.
It really is an easy.
I mean, it's a really nice entry-level bread that I think everybody could get into.
So it is.
And I think about that focaccia in that episode is like the focaccia that launched A Thousand Ships.
Yes.
Which is how we ended up with it as our recipe of the year, and how we ended up inviting Simi to come on the episode and talk to us.
Yeah.
And it's it's Simi, I mean, what a great guest I mean to have.
Uh, but I'm just thinking, we could have invited so many people on to talk about focaccia because so many, there's been so much innovation.
I was gonna ask you, where in Portland, Maine, are you eating focaccia these days?
Besides my house.
Besides your house, yeah.
I do make it at home.
I actually hardly ever go out for or buy focaccia because it is really easy.
And I think you get excellent results at home.
Yeah.
Other breads I'm like, eh, you know, like it's a time commitment or whatever.
Like, I'm not making baguettes every time I want a baguette.
But focaccia, I will make every time I want focaccia.
Yeah.
And where are you in these focaccias that you're making at home on the toppings?
Like, are you topping your focaccias a lot or are you making them pretty simple?
I do not make I don't top mine in a way that they are approaching pizza.
I don't have any like strong objection to that.
It's just not what I do.
I serve focaccia usually like either to build a sandwich or as a side dish to something else.
So the extent of my topping is like an herb, an olive, maybe.
I'll mess around with an olive, like maybe some slices of lemon, you know, I do sometimes.
Or maybe like cherry tomatoes dimpled in.
Okay.
But I don't like, you know, I don't go maximalist.
Like we were talking about Radio Bakery, uh, and our colleague Martin Phillip just he spent a lot of time down there like checking out their focaccia, and inspired by that, did one that's topped with crumb fresh and mushrooms, and we have a video for that.
It's delicious.
But to me, then I'm like, well, then you're almost making pizza.
And that's fine, but that's just usually not how I'm eating focaccia.
That it's maximalist, you know, and that is where I think we are right now with focaccia.
That's where in this moment I think that's what we're talking about, whether it's the height or the the way it's topped, uh, how wet it is, how open it is, it's all about maximalism.
Yeah.
And where I was going was it specifically to make you mad, is this other trend in focaccia that we've seen recently of just like seeing how maximal we can take it.
Can we jelly donut focaccia?
Can we cinnamon roll focaccia?
Can we, you know, obviously pizza fly focaccia?
This is the trend on Instagram started by uh a baker named Lacey Osterman, who started a trend of asking, will it focaccha?
And so all the ones I mentioned, she did.
She did jelly donut, uh, she did spicy margarita focaccia, buffalo chicken focaccia.
I'm gonna be honest, I'll I'll speak on this first.
They all look delicious to me.
I would eat most of those.
I don't know if I would do spicy margarita.
This is margarita like the drink or margarita like the pizza?
The drink.
Yeah, I have opinions about this, but I'm gonna save it for later.
Oh, but we have a whole segment for my opinions on it.
Anyway, can't wait to hear this conversation.
More about Focaccio with you and Simeon.
I went to watch, because it had been years since I watched your salt fat acid heat series on Netflix.
I think, you know, same since it came out, right?
Um and so I watched the fat episode because it's in the fat episode that you debuted the world, this recipe for this Ligurian style focaccia, which was not in your first book.
It was not in the boson, it was only in the series.
It really came from the show, yeah.
And people really lost their minds about that focaccia.
It was like real, I you know, it was the power of visual of like of soft light, fo like beautiful photography.
Yeah, I mean, that episode is the shallow depth of field.
Yeah.
Uh it was filmed in Italy.
You know, you're taught how to make this focaccia by an Italian olive oil maker.
And there was something really cool about that focaccia that really captivated the world, I think, which was the brine.
The brine.
I'd never seen that either.
I had never seen it either.
So for people that haven't seen the episode, and they should, because it is beautiful, um, tell tell us about that method.
Yeah, well, the also my own personal relationship to Ligurian focaccia is that I lived in Italy for two years in my early 20s and I cooked there.
And I lived in Tuscany, which where focaccia is called schiacciata.
But um squish.
There was this one bakery that made the schiacciata that I could not get enough of.
And I that's always been sort of my platonic ideal of focaccia.
Then I came back home and I started cooking and baking, and I've just never, I'm like, what is it that they were doing there?
So then when I got to do this scene with this baker in in Liguria, and we I I knew I wanted to make focaccia.
I mean, he was just like the local baker in that town.
It was not some well-known person making super special.
He was just doing it the traditional way they've been doing it forever.
And then he came and I truly had no idea what he was gonna do.
He showed me how to make dough.
Okay, I've seen that.
Put a punch of oil in it to be expected.
Oil on top of the bottom.
So far, so good.
Yeah, all good.
And then he dimpled it and he made this very salty brine that he poured on top, which kind of blew my mind because the idea of putting water on top of your bread when you bake it, I mean, there is the steaming in the ovens, there's various things.
But I it kind of immediately made sense because I have historically always salted a focaccia with flavor of salt before you know at the as it goes in the oven.
Yep.
And that way the salt crystals stay, you know, they typically don't all dissolve.
So you get a little bit of the crunch.
Yeah.
But this thing that he did, it was like the salt cut got completely absorbed into the top of the dough.
And so it was in every bite.
Yeah.
And I realized that was the difference of that what I had never, you know, would been able to do at home and or like achieve in America, you know.
Yeah.
And I think it really was an Italian secret.
It was an Italian secret.
And I feel like it, you know, people received it as such.
Like it was very, very captivating, you know, for people.
Um and and still a delicious focaccia.
And I think, you know, we talked in the in the beginning of the show about my memories of the first time I ate focaccia, which was like at the, you know, like the mid-priced Italian restaurants of our youth.
And it was the age of sun-dried tomato, focaccia.
Yeah.
And they were thin.
You know, they were it was pretty thin and it was a pretty dense crumb.
And that I think is more like that Ligurian focaccia from the show.
Like it's got a pretty low profile, it's got a pretty tight crumb.
No, you know what?
It is tight.
I don't know how to explain it.
It's tight, but it's light.
Like tight, but like uh, it's not the like super fluffy.
Yeah, you're right.
It's not like super fluffy and open in that way, but it's not a it's not a dense bread.
And that's in part because it's got so much fat in it.
Yeah.
Um I mean you know better than me, but yes.
I mean, I do think, and we've been talking a lot about this in this episode, is like the the the times they are a change in.
The focaccia times they are a change in.
And I think that is actually reflected in the recipe in your in your new book.
Yeah, totally.
And I, you know, when I was writing salt, fat, acid heat, I just felt like bread, I have such respect for bread baking.
And to me, like I am have the incredible privilege of living in the Bay Area.
Like, do I ever bake breakfast?
All of the biggest things are when there's so many just breads at my fingertips here.
So um it didn't, it just felt like it wasn't my place to enter the bake bread baking conversation in salt fat in the in any way, which is why there's no focaccia recipe.
And then it was on the show, and it made sense for the show within the context of be filming in Liguria.
And I was like, well, I definitely want to have a this for people because one of my aims for the show was I wanted it to inspire people to cook in the way that when you watch Chef's Table, you're inspired to book a reservation.
Yeah.
Like um and so I was like, I knew I had to translate what I had learned in Italy to something doable.
So I didn't want a mixer, I didn't want, you know, all the stuff.
So I called our friend Josie Baker.
Oh yeah.
And I asked him and also Great Human, great baker.
Great human and also uh our my other friend, our other friend Lori Ellen Pellicano, two great sort of baking minds.
And they really like helped me refine and test a recipe that sort of would have the would mimic what I had had in Italy, but be achievable with like flour you could buy in America without a mixer, without special tools.
And Josie kept being like, Are you sure you don't want to make it with sourdough start?
I was like, absolutely not, because I want it to be for everyone.
People who've never baked anything.
And I do think that's part of why it became a thing that everyone was doing was it was a lot of the people's first thing they ever baked.
Yeah.
And I think that's the beauty of focaccia, is there's not the pressure of like beautiful proofing and shaping.
There's not the pressure of a sourdough starter.
Yeah.
There's not the pressure there, it's it's a very low pressure, and it's so low pressure that often you make it with spent other dough, you know?
Right, right.
It's and it's low pressure, but also very delicious.
You know, like it's the the sort of like labor to reward, you know, ratio, very high.
But your new recipe in good things, um you're not so the salt-fat acid heat recipe based on the Ligurian one is made with all-purpose flour.
But the one in good things now you're making with bread flour.
Tell me about that.
That was also because I wanted the first one, the one from the show, to be really as achievable as possible for the maximum number of people and not require like a special trip to the store.
Yeah.
And so it wasn't worth whatever I would get a much broader net of people making the the focaccia with just a pea flour.
Yeah.
And then, despite my previous um sort of reticence about trying to make my own sourdough starter and bread, I am a human who survived the pandemic.
Yeah.
I mean, and so so I did at some point, I made a starter.
I I I spent probably three to six weeks.
I don't, I can't, it's a blurrer of a time.
Yeah.
Doing this.
And during that time, the main thing that I like really came to understand and learn was the value of the turn and the go turn.
So yeah, which we call at King are there stretch and folds.
But stretch and folds.
I mean, same thing.
Yeah.
And so, and like what that can do for a sh a shape and loft.
So that was a way where when I saw like what a stretch and fold could do for creating that loft combined with what the bread flour was doing, I was like, let me see if I can take this like bread flour thing for this stretch and fold from what I've like practiced in my very brief tenure as a sourdough maker and adapt that into the focaccia, still maintaining sort of you don't need a mixer, you don't need all these things.
Time out, Tio.
Because I think there's some interesting things that our our listeners might not know about.
So a few things.
One is that bread flour is stronger, right?
Yes, yes, so a higher protein.
No, I mean, that's but and people may know this.
So stronger just means it has more protein.
And I like to think of it as like more muscles to keep shape.
Yeah, well, exactly, right?
And then, and then, you know, you so you're starting with a bread that will, by its very nature, give you a stronger dough, and then further strengthening the dough with that machine mix, right?
But if you don't want to do a machine mix and you still want to build strength, that's where the time and folds, exactly.
And the stretch and folds, I think, is like, you know, as close to a sort of like no-need process as you can get while still getting your hands dirty.
You know, so you're getting in there and you're actually just physically pulling up one corner of the dough, stretching it towards the center, plopping it down, turning it, and repeating until the dough doesn't want to stretch anymore.
Exactly.
And then letting it like hang out for a little while and then repeating that process.
Um It's like you're doing the reps.
You're doing the reps.
You're doing the reps, yep.
You're putting in the work and then training the abs.
Exactly.
And then you're letting your dough in the good things recipe then sit for a long time.
A long time, yeah.
And then I think you know, both of both that big and bubbly focaccia of ours and your recipe for focaccia have the the tip to like once it's in the pan, you really have to like let it proof.
You have to let it rise.
Do not let it rise.
Yeah, that's really important.
Because otherwise you're not gonna get like everything you've worked for is not for not.
Yeah.
What I love about focaccia is that it is.
Not hard to make and it's you know, like our big and bubbly focaccia is and you know can be made in the afternoon.
Yours has the overnight rest.
Oh, I'm gonna add that to my list.
Try it out.
Yeah, try it out because um that is it is a pain for mine, it does ru involve planning.
But that so yeah, I mean, but hands off mostly, you know.
But just like sometimes you're like, Man, I wish I had started that yesterday.
I basically always wish that.
Um and I do think it's a bread.
I mean, I know that you can revive leftover focaccia, but I do think it is a bread best eaten.
Like baked and just eaten, inhaled.
Yes, totally agreed.
Um, well, I mean, it's always a treat.
Oh, I love it.
Never enough time, always a treat.
We love having you on the show.
And I love listening to it.
Oh, thanks.
Thanks.
Yes, you guys are great.
Well, until next time, my friends.
Yes, I can't wait.
Thanks, guys.
This episode is brought to you by King Arthur Bread Flour.
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It's time for our next segment, Ask the Bakers.
For Ask the Bakers, we want to hear from you.
If you have a baking question for us, head to KingArthurBaking.com slash podcast to record a voice message, and we may end up using it on the show.
That's kingarthurbaking.com slash podcast.
But you know, we get it.
Sometimes you're like in the middle of a bake and you've got a question and you can't wait, you know, for another season of the podcast to have your question answered.
You have no patience.
You're answering the dough.
Yeah.
And you need a solution.
In those situations, you can always reach out to our bakers hotline via phone, email, or online chat.
You can go to kingarthurbaking.com slash bakers dash hotline.
That's kingarthurbaking.com slash bakers dash hotline, or call us 855-371-2253.
That's 2253 as in bake.
Let's do our first questions.
Hello, this is Adrian in St.
Louis.
I have a question about Facasha.
I recently had a fantastic meal at St.
Vito Facascheria in Nashville.
And what impressed me about their facasha was the layer of earth on the top, they remained very bright and vibrant, and I assume that they added those herbs after the faca was awake.
Because every time I tried to add them before it was baked, they turn out unappealing.
I'm curious how they did that so that I could replicate it at home.
And I'm hopeful that if you called and asked them, they would tell you.
Well, that's what we did.
That's what we did.
And I this is the focaccia restaurant or the facaccia rio, which is a new word to me, that I had uh never heard of before until we got this question and looked it up yesterday.
Stunning.
Beautiful.
I mean, I haven't had the food there and I never heard of this place, but don't even know if it's real, you know.
But it's on Instagram and and the facachas are big, beautiful.
I mean, I want to eat there.
Uh we did reach out to them.
Uh they very quickly answered this question, and the answer is that they dehydrate their herbs.
Uh, you know, a custom herb mix, uh dried oregano, fennel pollen, parsley, and thyme that they dehydrate at a very low temperature so as not to burn the herbs.
Uh, and they sprinkle it on the facaccia after they baked.
After it's baked, yeah.
I think that's key.
And it's interesting, fennel pollen, that's a that is an ingredient that I think you see a lot in Italian, like Italian country cooking.
You see it less in America, but it's really gives you that like sort of anise perfume to the whole thing.
Yeah.
And I wonder, you know, if you wanted to try this at home, I feel like just doing a blend of dried herbs is not the same.
Like it's not going to retain that same vibrancy that she talks about.
Storebox.
Yeah, if you were to get like dry thyme and stuff.
So I think one option, I've used this with other herbs, and I imagine it would work with this combination that they describe here of oregano parsley thyme.
You strip the leaves off and you sandwich the leaves between layers of paper towel, and then you dehydrate them in your microwave.
Low power bursts.
Uh, and that works pretty well.
Like then you get, you know, crunchy leaves, and then you could crumble it up if you don't have a food dehydrator, which I do not.
Yeah.
But there's other ways I think we were, you know, before we got we heard back from from St.
Vito, and thank you, St.
Vito, for helping us with this question.
Um, you and I were sort of like, well, what would we do if we were in this situation?
Because neither of us would have put the herbs on the focaccia and baked it.
Because that's that's never gonna work, you know, especially for focaccia, which bakes, I don't know, it doesn't make it super high time.
Sure, what like 350 usually, maybe 375?
Still 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and the I mean it's it's not gonna turn out.
It's not gonna work.
So you had a I think we both had a similar idea.
You had a good one that was inspired by our current recipe of the year.
Yeah, so the flaky puff crust pizza, the finishing touch for that is a basil and garlic oil.
So fresh basil in olive oil, you know, that gets seasoned, then it's got some garlic in it, and that gets spooned on after the bake.
Um, and that I think is nice because often focaccio recipes are have you adding additional oil, you know, after it's come out of the oven, just so you get that beautiful pooling.
So you could make a fresh herb oil.
I mean, you could even like if you wanted to be extra extra, read all about it, you could, you know, blant your basil, dry it, and make a basil oil, you know, in like a Vitamix with olive oil.
And you'd have like a very vibrant green.
Well, you could do the parsley too, the same technique.
Like that would be pretty to look at and really deliver like a very bright, fresh herb flavor.
Okay, caller.
Well, thank you for that question.
And thank you for uh for alerting us to St.
Vito, a destination we'll have to hit one day.
Um Yeah, Nashville.
It's a great food city, so just another awesome place to visit.
Um, let's hear our next question.
Hi there.
I was wondering how can I get a more open crumb in my faccia?
I think some of this comes down to the formula.
Yeah, I think we should the recipe.
I think we should start there.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
You're I mean, I'm channeling my inner Martin right now where it's like it all starts on the day you're born.
But I think that you starts in Roman times.
It starts uh it starts with the Etruscans or in the Fertile Crescent.
No, but I think that you want to look for a recipe that's a higher hydration recipe.
And I know that there are probably some listeners out there that are like, well, how do I know?
Yeah.
And you have to do math.
Yeah, a little a little bit of math.
Yeah.
So you uh let's see.
In Baker's math, which is what the math we're talking about, uh it's all a ratio.
You're breaking down the ingredients into ratios and it's all based on the total amount of flour.
Right.
So if there if there are a thousand grams of flour in this recipe and 80 grams or 800 grams of water or other liquid, uh, then you have an 80% hydration.
Because flour is always 100% and everything else gets calculated against the flour.
Exactly.
So what you would do is you would just I you know to figure out if it's a high hydration dough, like you don't need to go, you can eyeball it a little bit, you know, just like look at the ratio between all the liquid versus all the flour.
Total up all the flour if they're like two, if there's like semolina, add that to the all-purpose or whatever.
Sure.
And if there's milk, I mean, actually, there are facachas we've we haven't even talked about yet, sweet facachas that do are enriched with eggs and milk.
Uh, if there's milk, water, add that up and then just compare the two.
I would say a high what counts as high hydration, there's no law around that, but I would say 80%.
I was gonna say that, yeah.
You can you can reasonably assume that you're gonna get a reasonably open crumb with 80% or high.
And I think the thing of it is like an 80% hydration dough, if you were say wanting to make a shaped boule or batard, like might make you know a a greener bread baker very anxious because it's a it's wet.
And it's like you if you dump it out, it's like an amoeba, and you're like, how do I?
It's sticky.
But that's where, like, that's where focaccia is so brilliant.
Because you like almost don't even have to touch the dough, you know, like you're mixing it up, it gets puffy, it's really wet, then you're scraping it into your oiled pan, and you just do the flip once to get it coated in oil on both sides, but you don't have to touch it a lot.
And then when you do touch it to dimple it, your hands are coated in oil.
So you're not gonna stick it.
It's not sticking like crazy.
And the other thing, I mean, and this I learned, I just like learned and relearned this lesson when we were working on the bread book.
And I still think about it all the time when I bake bread of any kind.
Like you really have to push the proof on it.
So, like when that focaccia is in the pan, like you really want to wait.
You know, you want to keep it in a warm place, which is hard in my cold house.
You know, I have to actually, you know, work.
I sometimes put it on like a heating pad or they have those heating mats.
And you really want to wait until that bread visibly looks, that dough visibly looks very bubbly.
And you like give the pan a little jiggle and it should like be almost like a marshmallow.
Yeah.
And that's the benefit of having a bread that's baked in a pan.
Yeah.
Because the risk of overproofing is uh curbed by the fact that it's in a pan.
Right.
Because you know, the risk of overproofing a freestanding loaf is that it's just gonna kind of spread out and it's gonna lose its shape.
Yeah, it'll collapse.
But you can push pan breads a little harder in the proof uh because they already have some built-in structure.
Yeah.
And this is not to say that you should intentionally overproof all your pan loaves, but like for Kakasha, for kasha specifically, if you're looking for something really bubbly, you gotta wait to see those bubbles.
Yeah, you gotta wait.
And I think um you know, it may take a little longer than you think.
But those are the I think those are the two tips.
So choose a formula that, you know, favors higher hydration, that'll give you a great start, and then give it enough time in a you know, cozy environment to reach its full potential.
Yeah.
That's what all I want for myself.
Yeah.
Enough time in a cozy environment.
You know what?
That you're right.
That is a life lesson.
Just give yourself time to reach your full potential.
Don't rush.
Don't waste time.
But I think we have one last focaca-related question.
Let's hear our next one.
I have a great focaccia recipe, but it makes way more than we can consume in one sitting.
Do you have any tips for storing focaccia or reheating it so that we can enjoy it a day or two later?
Thanks.
Well, you know my answer to this.
Just eat more.
See, don't leave that table until the aftercastle turns.
I mean, I think there's a few things.
If you really wanted to, if you have a recipe that you love, we were just talking about Baker's mouth.
You know, Baker's Math is built on ratios.
You could scale it down.
I you know, so that's option door number one is scale it down.
Yeah.
Um, which I think is a fine thing to do.
I mean, option two is look for, you know, a smaller recipe.
Like our big and bubbly focaccia is an eight by eight pan.
We also have that small batch cheesy focaccia, which is made in a loaf pan, which is a great for like, you know, two people.
Yeah.
Say you're keeping your recipe that you love, which I hope is from the big book of bread, but I am glad that you have one that you love.
Um, other things that I recommend, I do think that day old focaccia makes a superlative crouton, you know, because it's already got the oil like built right in, you know.
Um, so I think that is a great thing to do.
I wouldn't like, you know, it's often when I make croutons, I like will assemble a bag of cube bread in my freezer.
And when I have enough of it, I will I wouldn't do that.
I would make croutons the next day and use them up.
Um, but you know, we've been talking a bit about sandwiches, focaccia sandwiches, which honestly I feel like this could be a focaca sandwich episode.
Very niche audience, but um one of the things that I don't know if I would call it a pain point, but like say you have a focacci sandwich and you want it to be a hot focaca sandwich and you don't have like a sandwich press, right?
Like the exterior of a loaf of focaccia is like I mean, it's all crust, right?
Like no crumb.
It's sort of sealed off.
And so when you like go to griddle it, it's kind of you know, it can get it like a little greasy and sort of bad, you know, just like one texture, like one solid texture.
But it's also uneven.
Yeah.
So it's hard to get, you know, if those dimples, those holes, you're not gonna get contact with the pan if you're griddling that.
So what I like to do if I'm gonna do like a grilled or toasted focaccia sandwich is I um, you know, I cut my focaccia in half and then I flip it inside out.
So the top becomes, you know, the top becomes the middle, I guess, right?
So you have like you're exposing the crumb of the focaccia on both sides of your sandwich.
And then, you know, you can butter it or you can oil it up, and you'll get like a really, you know, you can toast it in a really nice way or griddle it in a really nice way, and it'll it'll be sort of craggy and delicious.
So like the inside-out focaccia sandwich, I think, is a great thing to do with Dale focaccia.
I love that.
Because it can definitely be revitalized with a toast.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
In both these situations, you're reheating the focaccia, either to make croutons or to make the sandwich.
And that's a great thing about focaccia, it's full of oil.
So when you reheat it, that oil is gonna like kind of sizzle on the sides.
Yeah, like make it help with browning and crispiness.
Really, really nice.
Yeah, and then making like a grilled cheese sandwich on inside-out focaccia is that's a trick for the ages.
It's so good.
Trick for the ages.
So please, caller, take my trick from the ages for the ages.
So those are our questions.
Thank you, callers.
Now it's time for the most important segment of the podcast.
Every episode we like to check in with Jessica to see what wildly surprising and full-throated ideas are in her head.
A segment we lovingly call Jess Opinions.
And Jessica, I think I know what your just opinion is gonna be this week.
You hinted at it early in this episode, but hit me.
What's your just opinion about the?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're we're getting back to the will it focaccia.
And I my opinion is I don't want to find out.
Like, you know, I don't.
And that's not entirely true.
You know, as always, here I go to offer a qualifier for it.
But I think, you know, I am actually myself not a huge fan of a sweet focaccia.
Okay.
Like I said, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, it is traditional.
There are traditional sweet potatoes.
Um, and I don't want them.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a fine thing.
Like, I don't think it should be banned worldwide, but it is not my thing.
Um but I feel like that I mean, and that to me, like the grape and sugar seems like, you know, very like a Sunday school picnic compared to like what people are doing with sweet focaccia now.
Like, okay, I think I follow your logic there.
But there's like strawberry Danish focaccia.
And like, I mean, just because you can put anything into a bread dough does not mean that you should.
Okay.
I don't think.
Like, exercise a little restraint.
Like strawberry Danish is great, cinnamon rolls, delicious.
Like these are all great things, but like they don't all have to be combined into one.
I I love the core of the Chesapeinian, which is exercise some restraint, America.
And I think I can get with you there, uh just generally.
Yeah.
But on some of these facachas, I just have to counterpoint this by saying, like I said before, a lot of them look really delicious to me.
I don't know if I would personally make a lot of them.
I don't think I'm gonna be you're making a spicy margarita one every weekend, actually.
I'm not, and just I just don't think I would go there.
However, we did uh sort of jump on this trend a little bit, and we uh published a recipe for a cinnamon roll facaccha, another Sarah Jumpel recipe.
And I had to, I gotta tell you, that thing is freakishly delicious.
It is so good.
I mean, it's it's maximal, you know.
If you're making this cinnamon roll filling, you're putting it in the dimples.
Uh there's I think a little maybe a little more sugar.
I don't think there's any cinnamon in the dough because cinnamon, you know, can inhibit uh fermentation.
Um and it gets a glaze afterwards.
It's a lot.
But the crispy olive oily edges combined with that sweet cinnamon in the front, I mean it's I I think it's almost an improvement on cinnamon rolls.
Oh, I said you're gonna say improvement on focaccia.
No, an improvement on cinnamon rolls.
I mean, you know, I mean, because even though it's decadent, it's also really light because it's facaccia.
Yeah.
And uh and even though it's really sweet, it has that kind of bitter edge from the olive oil.
So it's it's a very complex and and and delicious thing.
So I would encourage listeners to uh, well, choose a side.
You know, you're there on Jesco's side or my side.
You're either Team Jesco or Team David, and you know, you decide.
I do think that recipe has been very well received because there are a lot of people that, you know, that want to m mess around with their frocaca.
And I think, you know, sure, like, sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, I understand.
You're traditionalist at heart, you know.
I think I am.
Yeah, I think I am.
Um but I should try it.
You know, I should try it, and then I will never admit if I was wrong.
So Okay, I was gonna I was gonna say try and report back if it's not like we'll not try it anymore.
I will try it and I will report back in a future episode.
So everyone can be on the edge of their seats until then.
Yeah.
Um we will put that recipe though for the Simon Warfaccha in the show notes and in our subsack, which if you have not uh subscribed to yet, do that.
Yeah, some behind the scenes stuff there.
Um, David, what are you gonna bake this week?
Well, I'm feeling a little desperate this week.
It's a yet another week of desperation for me.
Uh desperate for warmer weather.
I think we're at the point where this is where I start to get tired of it.
I really like the cold.
Yeah.
You know, I I don't like it when it's sort of the year is like kind of like one like kind of perma season.
It's sort of like in between the all year round.
I do think though, you get to this time of year, and sometimes as a New Englander, you think, oh, is it just is spring just passing us by this year?
Like not gonna stop by?
Right.
This this is the point where it's like, okay, I'm over it now.
Like I'm ready.
Like this is ridiculous.
It's April, you know, like let's let's get some warmth and let's get spring going.
So I'm gonna make spring happen with strawberry lemonade bars, which is a very easy recipe.
I believe it fits into our Bake It Easy rubric on the site.
Um and it's it's got it's just delicious.
It's it's exactly what it sounds like.
It's a lemon-flavored bar cookie with a frosting, uh strawberry frosting with using dehydrated strawberries.
Uh, and it's great.
And it's pretty.
And uh when I eat one, I will feel a monacumophobe.
I think, you know, yeah.
I I'm also gonna bake something sweet this week.
I was really excited and inspired by I love um patachou pastries, so cream puffs, perfiderols, eclairs, like, but there was a new to me, I thought I had tried them all, um, that uh Molly, Marsla Kelly just developed in Art Test Kitchen for the Karpotka cake, which is a cream puff cake, essentially, that gets split and filled with a uh pastry.
Well, it's actually, I think it's German buttercream that she filled it with.
So it's like a really rich filling, and she added raspberries to her.
And I just tried it in passing in the test kitchen as we often do.
But it's like, you know, we try a lot of things in the test kitchen just passing through.
And there's some things that were like really like lodge in my yeah, they stop you.
Yeah, and I've never made that cake before, so it's like always fun to try something new.
Um, and I think it could be, I mean, I know some people audition recipes before they make them for like events.
I never do, I just go and white knuckling it, hoping for the best.
But I'm thinking like this could be like a really nice sort of celebration dessert for like spring holidays.
Um it's stunning looking.
Anyway, so those are recipes that people might want to try along with us.
Great.
Um, as always, we appreciate our listeners tuning in to Things Bakers Know.
Yes.
Remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts so you know when the next episode drops.
And you could also share this episode with a friend, maybe somebody you want to make strawberry lemonade bars for you.
Yeah.
And you can leave us a review while you're there.
Yes.
And when you're baking this week, folks, please, please remember, follow the recipe.
Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive produced by me, David Tamarkin.
And me, Jessica Batalana.
Rossi Anastapulo is our senior producer, Chad Ch and I is our producer, and Marcus Bagala is our engineer.
Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala.
Thanks again to our friend Samine Nosrat for appearing on today's episode.
You can learn more about Simeen and her work, including her latest cookbook, Good Things, at chawsamine.com.
Things Bakers Know is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast.
Ciao.