Avoid This Simple Mistake For Better Decorated Focaccia
Focaccia, the finger-pressed, oil-enriched Italian flatbread, is a fun and easy home bake, especially for beginners. As long as you have flour, water, yeast, olive oil, and a cast iron pan, you're minutes away from enjoying this crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside sensation. Once you've perfected your foundational focaccia recipe, the possibilities are endless. You can keep it simple with a dusting of thyme or oregano, pair it with olive oil for dipping, or slice it and serve it as part of an underrated Italian sandwich. But before you start decorating your dough with a torrent of toppings, it's important to know which ingredients can be added before the bread begins baking versus which ones should be added at the very end. If you don't time your toppings correctly, you could be making a recipe-ruining mistake.
Chowhound spoke exclusively with chef Luca Corazzina to learn his focaccia-focused advice. "Ingredients like herbs or cheese can burn if exposed to high heat for too long," he says. "To avoid this, add these toppings about 10 to 15 minutes before the focaccia is done." As the chef de cuisine at Olio e Più in New York, DC, and Chicago, Corazzina knows his stuff. His menus feature several focaccia options from burrata cream and mortadella to speck and arugula. Robust ingredients like cured meats can withstand the entire baking process, but more delicate ingredients like arugula should be added at the end. With Corazzina's guidance, it's easy to know when to add which toppings to your homemade focaccia.
How to decorate homemade focaccia like a pro
Unlike other long-roasting dishes or thoroughly baked breads, focaccia has a fairly quick baking time (around 30 minutes). As a result, there are loads of ingredients you can add directly to the dough before it bakes. For a savory focaccia, jarred olives, capers, or sun-dried tomatoes can all be added before baking. So can artichoke hearts, cured slices of meats, rounds of zucchini, and slivered peppers. You can also add savory toppings that take a little more work in advance like caramelized onions, roasted garlic, and tomato confit. For a sweeter preparation, sliced figs, halved grapes, and slices of other fruits like peaches, strawberries and apples can all be added before the bake. A sprinkling of sugar will also caramelize deliciously on top of your focaccia dough as it bakes.
However, as chef Luca Corazzina notes, there are some toppings that need little to no time in the oven. All cheese varieties like burrata, Parmesan, gorgonzola, or fontina should only spend 10 minutes or so in the oven. Tapenades and chili oils could be added at the same time. Other ingredients like any variety of pesto, fresh greens, herbs, or tomatoes should be added to your focaccia as it cools outside of the oven. On the sweet side, a balsamic glaze, a spread of Nutella, a sprinkling of orange or lemon zest, a dusting of powdered or cinnamon sugar, or a light layer of chopped nuts should top your focaccia after it bakes. Now your focaccia recipe is ready for whatever you throw at it.