weigh-ups:

• 850 grams bread flour (I recommend King Arthur)
• 850 grams water (100-102 degrees F)
• 7 grams yeast
• 30 grams fine sea salt (or pink salt if you're cool like that)
• lots of olive oil

steps:

1. weigh out the flour and yeast into a container, or a mixing bowl.
2. into a seperate vessel, heat up your water to 100 degrees. add the yeast into the water and dissolve. depending on the weather conditions of where you live, you may need to adjust the temperature of your water by a few degrees.
3. add about a third of your water to the flour to start, and mix it in with a spatula. repeat this until all the water is incorporated. using your hands at this stage is suboptimal because of how sticky it'll be.
4. continue to mix your dough until it can stretch if you lift your spatula/spoon/whatever mixing tool up in the air without it breaking immediately. if it still resembles a paste and you can't stretch it for very long, keep going. this is a super high-hydrated dough so it'll seem unworkable for a while, but with enough perserverance and mixing, it'll become malleable.
5. once the dough has structure, add 20g sea salt, and at this point I can wet my hands and begin beating it by hand while tilting the bowl upwards, towards me, so the dough can catch some air. I ended up mixing mine for about 25-30 minutes. don't give up!!
6. once it has structure, is stretchy and is sticking less, transfer it to any baking sheet. you won't be baking the focaccia in this vessel, so just make sure it's big enough to fit the dough.
7. I like to spray the tray down with oil spray, I had avocado oil on hand so it's what I used. make sure to get the edges as well because the dough will rise a lot in this tray. drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on the bottom of the pan and then spread it out using your fingers.
8. gently transfer your dough from the bowl, to the oiled tray.
9. if you're a nerd, you can check the temperature of the dough. at this stage it should be within 69-75 degrees inside. (this step is optional, as long as your water was warm enough, you won't need to worry.
10. note: if in any case, you did check the temperature and it's not warm enough, you can warm it up by sitting it on top of a warm surface. I like to turn my oven on to only about 300 degrees then let the pan sit on the stovetop for about 10 minutes. usually does the trick. see what works for you! 😊
11. cover the tray with parchment paper and let it rest for 20-30 minutes. reason why I use parchment paper is because it weighs so little and won't hinder any rising from the dough in any stage of the process.
12. once the time has passed, uncover and begin folding the dough with a bowl fold method. to do this: work your way around the edges of the dough in a circle, grab an edge, pull it towards the center and press it down. do this 12 times. this is absolutely necessary for our super super wet dough to gain structure.
13. cover again with parchment and return in 20-30 minutes.
14. once the time has passed again, begin coil folding. to do this: grab the dough from the sides. pull it upwards, let it droop a little bit, then gently place the dog-eared shaped dough onto the tray, and wrap it over itself. turn the tray 90 degrees, and repeat. do this 12 times as well.
15. return in 20-30 minutes. coil fold 3 more times, all with 20-30 minute intervals in between, for a total of 4 coil folds.
16. once all the folding has finished, cover with parchment and let rest in fridge overnight. (or 8 hours)
17. good morning if you just came back from finishing up at 1 am like I did! if it's a little bubbly looking, you're looking good! go ahead and pull the dough from the fridge, and let it set at room temp UNCOVERED for 2 hours. if you happen to be in the middle of winter, you can continue to cover it with parchment, but it still will probably be fine.
18. once it's finished resting at room temp, preheat your oven to 480 degrees fahrenheit.
19. transfer the focaccia to a bigger baking tray. preferably one that will fit when the dough is fully stretched out. just like before, make sure this one is well oiled! you can never have too much olive oil!
20. in a small container, add 10g water and 10g salt and mix them together. fling this stuff on the top of your focaccia, it'll help flavor.
21. drizzle olive oil up top, and press into it with your fingers creating lots of dips! this will help intensify the bubbles up top.
22. at this stage, add any other seasonings you may like. I just like to add rosemary and basil on top, but you can add anything! just make sure that whatever you add before baking won't burn too much in the oven.
23. bread anoraks will say your dish needs to be preheated or the bread needs to be immediately blasted with heat as it goes in the oven, bla bla. this is home cooking. however, I still like to make sure my baking tray sits on the stovetop to warm up a little, as I mentioned earlier with warming up the dough pre-shape.
24. once your dough is oiled, seasoned, and everything is ready to go, place it in the oven and start cooking!
25. set a timer for about 15 minutes, let it bake.
26. once the timer has finished, come back to the dough, rotate it 90 degrees, and set another 15 minutes
27. in total, 30 minutes baking time. once it's finished, I use an instant read thermometer to make sure internally it's at least 195 degrees F, 210 at the most. the top should also retain a lot of the bubbles and be super smexy golden brown.
28. if the temp is correct, pull it out, and let rest to cool for about 30 min
29. add any other additional toppings or whatever else you'd like, and enjoy! ❤️