Crusty, aromatic, and sprinkled with fresh rosemary and sea salt, freshly baked semolina focaccia is simple to make and will become your favorite bread. The smell of the focaccia baking is AMAZING; there is no other word for it. You don’t have to be an experienced bread-maker to create this special treat.
Focaccia can be topped with a wide variety of herbs, vegan cheeses, and veggies or just eaten plain right out of the oven. Semolina flour gives the bread a lovely golden color, if you don’t have semolina flour, it’s fine to substitute all bread flour; it will still be delicious.
It looks so luscious when it’s on its second rising.
Serve the focaccia warm with extra olive oil for dipping.
Try these other delicious bread recipes:
Semolina Focaccia Bread
Prep
Cook
Inactive
Total
Yield 1 loaf
Semolina focaccia is simple to make by following these step-by-step instructions.
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups plus 1/4 cup bread flour, separated
- 2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
- 1 cup fine semolina flour
- 1 cup water
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine salt (for the dough)
- 1 tablespoon plus 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, separated
- sea salt for sprinkling on top of the dough (not fine grain; use a chunkier salt)
- 1 tablespoon (or more) fresh chopped rosemary
- optional: approximately 20 pitted black olives
Instructions
In a large mixing bowl, add the water and sprinkle the yeast evenly over the water. Let the mixture sit for about 3-4 minutes or until the yeast looks dissolved. Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and stir. Add the semolina flour and stir well until the mixture is smooth.
Add 1 cup of the bread flour and the salt and stir well for at least a minute. Add another quarter cup of bread flour and stir again. The dough should be coming together in one mass. If not, add bread flour by the tablespoon, stirring well after each addition until the dough holds together. It will be very soft.
Prepare a lightly-floured surface and using a dough scraper, scrape the dough onto the surface. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and your hands. Gently begin to knead the dough, taking care not to let dough stick to your hands. Sprinkle flour in small amounts over the dough as you are kneading it and it becomes sticky.
When the dough holds together in a smooth ball that springs back gently when prodded with a finger, put it in a large bowl lightly coated in olive oil. Cover the bowl tightly with a plate, a damp towel, or plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled in size.
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. Lightly oil a 12 x 9 x 1 baking pan with olive oil. Gently scrape the risen dough into the pan and press the dough lightly with your hands until is covers the entire pan. Cover and let the dough rise again for at least 30 minutes. It will become puffy but not double in size again.
With your thumb, make even impressions in the dough's surface about 1 inch apart. Drizzle a few drops of olive oil in each "dimple" and sprinkle the rosemary and the chunky salt over the dough. Bake for 25 minutes. The bread is done when it is golden colored and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove the bread from the oven and flip it out onto a cutting board. Let it cool slightly before slicing.
Optional: Put a pitted black olive in each "dimple" of the dough before baking.
Notes
If you don't have bread flour, you can use white all-purpose flour, but you many not need to add as much flour when kneading.
Courses Bread
60
Would Kalamata Olives task OK in this Focacccia bread?
(because I already have some)
Can you make it easier to understand please I’m a chef and struggling t0 get my head around it. As it says 1 1/4 cup of flour plus 1/4 ….. so is this 1 and a 1/4 cups of flour plus a 1/4 cup or is it 2 1/4 cups of flour as when you read the method it says add a cup of flour then add a 1/4 cup for me it says 2 1/4 cups but contradicts it’s self asking f9r a full cup I’ve done both it works well both ways but would like to have a clear recipe ps I also find it’s better with 7g of yeast
The first flour to add is 1 cup of the semolina flour. Then 1 cup of bread flour. Mix well before adding the final 1/4 cup of bread flour. So the flour totals are 1 cup semolina, and 1 1/4 cups bread flour. You’ll also need a few tablespoons of flour for the kneading surface. I hope this helps. Deb
Great bread. The only thing was that it didn’t say when to add the salt in the instructions. It should have registered to me to add it, but I ended up forgetting salt, so I ate the focaccia with salted olive oil which was okay but not as good as it would have been if I had remembered the salt. I recommend editing the recipe to specify when to add the salt so that people don’t forget.