An Expert's Advice To Help You To Tell When Your Focaccia Is Finished

An Italian flatbread flavored with olive oil and indented by the practiced press of a baker's fingertips, focaccia can be found throughout Italy and ordered at your favorite local Italian restaurant. Crisp and golden on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, these perfect squares of yeasted dough may seem impossible to make as successfully at home. But focaccia is actually an ideal starter project for bread-baking novices. With minimal prep, a few ingredients, and a little bit of kneading, you can easily achieve crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside focaccia yourself.

Before tackling a foundational focaccia recipe, you might be worried about when to add toppings, if your yeast is active, or which pan to use — cast iron is a good choice. But the unexpected stumbling block that makes the biggest impact on the texture of your bread is actually just knowing when it's finished baking. To find the definitive answer to this quandary, Chowhound spoke exclusively with Luca Corazzina, the chef de cuisine of Olio e Più in New York City, Washngton D.C., and Chicago, to learn his hard-earned focaccia advice. "Your focaccia is ready when the top is golden brown and the edges are crisp," he explains. Essentially, when your bread is finished baking, it should look ready to plate and serve. Using these visual markers, you can feel confident your dough is cooked through and the bread has reached the right consistency.

We know what you're thinking: "Sure, it looks okay. But how can I be certain?" If you're worried your edges aren't crisp enough or that you added too much olive oil to the pan or baking dish, go ahead and remove your focaccia from the oven and lift your bread carefully out of the pan. Is it quite crispy underneath? Then you've made it. Let the bread cool before cutting it into slices. If you're struggling to lift a sticky focaccia out of the pan, it likely needs more time to bake through.

Chef Luca Corazzina also shared a few of his other tried-and-tested methods for checking if his focaccia has finished baking. "A tactile test is also helpful," he says. "Press lightly on the surface; it should spring back." Like a cake or cupcake recipe, a finished focaccia shouldn't feel tacky or stodgy to the touch. If your edges are perfectly crisp and the surface of your focaccia springs pleasantly back, but you're still concerned about the center being gooey, again approach your dough as you would a cake. "Insert a wooden skewer or toothpick into the center; if it comes out clean and dry, the bread is done," says Corazzina. As a final piece of advice, he suggests not totally trusting your oven's temperature. "For an evenly baked focaccia, rotate the pan midway through the baking process to account for hot spots in the oven," he shares. With all these tips in mind, you'll be sure to pull your focaccia out of the oven at the exactly right time.