Homemade Focaccia Bread

Who doesn’t love bread? I LOVE bread, and one of my favorites is probably focaccia bread. I made it for the first time, and decided I am never going to buy focaccia bread again, so much better homemade.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves (2 tsp minced garlic)
1 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp dry rosemary
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp honey
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp salt

To make to oil: add the olive oil, garlic, thyme, and rosemary in a pot and warm on the stove for about 10 minutes. The oil should not get to a boiling temperature, just warm. The house smelled amazing in about 5 minutes, I just left it on the back burner on warm while I did everything else.

I used a large glass bowl, and added a the cup of water, honey and yeast together and let it sit for about 5 minutes while my oil cooled. I then added 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of the oil mixture into the water/yeast/ honey mixture. Finally add the remainder 1 1/2 cups of flour and salt to the mixture.

Knead the dough until it becomes a smooth texture, cover the bowl with a warm towel and let the dough rise for 1 hour. After an hour, preheat the oven to 450. Use a few tsps of the leftover olive oil to oil a 9×13 pan. Push the dough out into the pan. You can use your fingers to make craters on the dough. Pour the remainder of your oil mixture over the top of the pan. Let the pan sit for another 20-30 minutes before baking. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a cooling rack for at least 20 minutes before cutting the bread.