Soft and Fluffy Easy No Knead Focaccia

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Focaccia is such a delicious and flavourful bread! A crispy golden crust with a soft and fluffy inside! And Focaccia is so versatile when it comes to flavouring it. The best part is that it is not that difficult to make a really good focaccia at home. Most recipes call for a strong bread flour, which can be difficult to get by or you many not have it handy all the time. So I wanted to come up with a recipe for all regular bakers like me how want to enjoy a good home made bread with regular ingredients that we have in our kitchens most often. So here is a recipe where you can make this focaccia with aata (whole wheat flour) and maida (all purpose flour).

What is a Focaccia?

Focaccia (pronounced Fo-Kah-Cha) is an Italian bread. It is a flat bread that has a crunchy crust at the top and bottom with a soft and fluffy texture inside. It can be both, sweet and savoury.

If you like the look and sound of this focaccia, I have another recipe of a Pizza Focaccia that you may also like! Yes, it is pizza and focaccia combined into one and it is so flavourful!

Flour

Mostly bread recipes call for high protein bread flour. Bread flours contain more gluten and result in dough that are more elastic. This in tern allows the dough to hold more air inside when it proves and bakes, resulting in fluffier breads.

Using bread flour will always give you better results when it comes to any bread recipe. However this recipe focuses on creating a good texture using aata (whole wheat flour) and maida (all purpose flour). This recipe uses equal parts of aata and maida by volume. But since aata is heavier than maida, if you measure by weight, this recipe used slightly more aata than maida.

Using only maida (all purpose flour) will give you even better results. But if you want to improve the nutritional value of your focaccia, using both aata and maida is the best way to go. Making this bread with just aata will result in a denser and less fluffier bread.

Other Ingredients

Instant Yeast is a commercial yeast that does not need to be activated before using and can be mixed right in with the other ingredients.It is easily available online too on Amazon. However if you don’t have Instant yeast handy, you can use Active dry yeast. But this will have to activated before using. With this recipe, you won’t have to do it separately, just wait for 10-15 minutes for the yeast mixture to turn frothy, before adding your flours.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is one of the most important flavours in a focaccia. Using a good flavoured Olive oil is very important. Make sure that you like the smell of the oil you are using. Fresher the oil, the better as oils tend to get a funky smell when they are old.

Water is an important ingredient in this recipe. The dough for this bread is a high hydration dough, which basically means that this dough is quite wet and hence sticky. But all that water also aids in gluten development in this case and makes the baked bread fluffier and softer. You will have some really big air bubbles and a beautiful texture that otherwise is not possible without bread four and specially when you use whole wheat flour in the mix too, if the dough doesn’t have enough water.

Jaggery provides a touch for sweetness and helps the yeast to work better. The final baked focaccia does not taste sweet. You can use Raw sugar or regular sugar here too.

Salt of course is important for the flavour in this is a savoury focaccia.

Chutney that I have made here is a simple green chutney with Coriander leaves, basil leaves, garlic, tomato and salt. You can try this chutney or make any green chutney that you love. You can even add green chillies to this chutney!

Now that we have covered all the ingredients, here is how you make this Focaccia!

Green Chutney Focaccia

Serves: 6 Prep Time: 3hrs Cooking Time: 30mins 30mins

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

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Ingredients

For the dough

• 1.25 cups (310 grams) - Warm water
• 1 tsp (5 grams) - Instant dry yeast
• 1 tsp - Jaggery
• 1 cup (140 grams) - Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 cup (125 grams) - All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp - Salt
• 1/2 tbsp - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

For the chutney

• 1 cup - Coriander leaves
• 2-3 Cloves of garlic
• 1 small Tomato
• 10-12 Basil leaves
• 1/2 tsp - Salt

2 tbsps - Olive oil at the bottom of pan before transferring the dough

1/2 tbsp - Extra Virgin Olive oil on top of dough before baking

Instructions

For the dough -

1. Warm your water to around 40-45C. If you don't have a thermometer, the water should feel just slightly warm when you touch. It should not feel hot. It should feel pleasantly warm.
2. Take a large bowl as the dough will rise to almost 3 times its actual size. In the bowl add the water, yeast and jaggery. Give it a stir. 
3. If you are using Active dry yeast, leave this mixture for 10-15 minutes until it turns frothy. If you are using Instant yeast, you can straight away add the flours.
4. Add the aata (whole wheat flour) and maida (all purpose flour) to the bowl, followed by salt and extra virgin olive oil. Give it a very good mix with a silicon or wooden spatula. All the dry flour should be evenly incorporated.
5. Whisk this dough with the spatula for 2-3 minutes. Cover it with a lid or foil or plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place for 30 minutes to prove.
6. After 30 minutes, uncover the dough, dip your hands in some water, grab one part of the dough from one of the edges, stretch it up and drop it on the opposite side of the bowl. Repeat this process until you have covered dough all around the bowl. This is one round of stretch and fold.
7. Cover the dough again and set it aside in a warm place for another 30 mins. 
8. Perform one more round of stretch and fold all around the dough. Cover the dough again and set it aside in a warm place for another 30 mins. We have to do this stretch and fold technique 4-5 times in total (at the very least 3 times).
9. After the final stretch and fold, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top of the dough and spread it over the top surface. Cover the dough and leave it at room temperature for 1 hr or place the dough in the fridge overnight. 
10. Keeping the dough in the fridge will give you a fluffier texture.
11. Now take an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan and grease it with 2 tbsp of olive oil. If you want to use a parchment paper, add the olive oil on top of the parchment paper.
12. Add the dough to the prepared pan and gently stretch it to the edges as evenly as you can.
13. Cover the dough with a kitchen town or a clean cloth and keep it in a warm place to prove for around 1-2 hours until the dough doubles in size.
14. When the dough is proving in the pan, make the chutney.
15. Add all the ingredients in a blender jar and blend it until a smooth paste forms. If needed, add 1 tbsp of water.
16. Take out 1/4 cup of this chutney in a bowl and add extra virgin olive oil. Mix it.
17. Once the dough has doubled in size, gently spread this chutney all over the top. Add some extra virgin olive oil and grease your fingertips too.
18. Now gently spread the chutney lightly and press down into the dough with all your fingers and thumb. Be gentle but press deep into the dough. Repeat this all over the top of the dough.
19. Bake this focaccia in the lower rack of a preheated oven at 200C for around 25-35 minutes depending on your oven, until the top turns a nice golden brown.
20. Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool for 5-10 minutes before taking it out on a wire rack to cool further.
21. Wait for at least 30 minutes before slicing into it.
22. Enjoy the bread as it or use it to make sandwiches.
23. Store any leftover bread in an airtight container or ziplock bag in the fridge.

Notes

1. Make sure that the water is not very hot. It will kill the yeast instead of activating it.
2. Depending on the flour, the quantity of water needed may vary slightly. In your initial attempts with this recipe, you can start the process with 1 cup of water, make the dough and add the remaining 1/4 cup of warm water gradually to see how much water is required for your flour.
3. Do at least 3 rounds of stretch and fold on the dough. This process helps with the gluten development and will create that beautiful texture and those bigger air bubbles at end.
4. Slow proving the dough in the refrigerator overnight will give you a better flavour and texture. You can leave the dough in the fridge for upto 48 hours.
5. Feel free to customise the chutney to you or your family's preference.
6. You can reduce the amount of olive oil used. But grease the bottom of the pan generously. This is a sticky dough and the bread can be difficult to take out of the pan later.
7. Baking it at a high temperature is important to get a softer inside and a crunchy crust. You can go up to 210C or even 220C but keep an eye out on the colour of the crust. Make sure it doesn't burn.
8. Bake focaccia in the lowest rack of your oven.

Did You Make This Recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag me on Instagram at @VanillaTrails and use the hashtag #MadeWithVanillaTrails.