Sourdough Focaccia (Using Your Homemade Starter)
Bake soft sourdough focaccia using your homemade starter. A beginner-friendly focaccia recipe with olive oil, rosemary, sea salt and natural fermentation.
Once your starter is ready, you can begin baking a wide variety of sourdough breads at home.
From rustic country loaves and crusty boules to pizza dough and focaccia, sourdough adds deep flavour and natural fermentation to everyday baking.
If you are new to sourdough baking, focaccia is one of the easiest breads to start with because the dough is soft, forgiving, and does not require complicated shaping.
If you have not made a starter yet, you can follow our guide on How to Make a Sourdough Starter at home before trying this recipe.
Sourdough itself has a long history stretching back thousands of years, when ancient civilisations relied on natural fermentation to leaven bread long before commercial yeast existed. You can read more about this tradition in our article on The Origins and History of Sourdough Bread.
In this recipe below, we use the starter you created to bake a golden sourdough focaccia with olive oil, rosemary, and sea salt.
Preparing the Starter
If your sourdough starter has been stored in the refrigerator, take it out and let it sit at room temperature for about 30–60 minutes to take the chill off.
Discard about half of the starter, then feed it with equal parts flour and water. For example, keep 50g starter and mix it with 50g flour and 50g water. This will give you 150g starter in total. Leave the jar at room temperature for about 4–6 hours until the starter becomes bubbly and roughly doubles in size. Once it looks airy and active, it is ready to use for baking.
For this recipe you will use 100g of starter. After using it, about 50g starter will remain in the jar. This becomes the base for your next bake.
To maintain it, simply feed the remaining starter again with 50g flour and 50g water. Let it sit at room temperature for about 1–2 hours to restart fermentation, then store it back in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake again.
Sourdough Focaccia (Using Your Homemade Starter)
Ingredients
- 100g active sourdough starter (fed and bubbly)
- 400g bread flour
- 300g water (room temperature)
- 10g salt
- 30g olive oil (plus extra for topping and greasing the pan)
- Fresh rosemary
- Flaky sea salt
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the work area.
- 2
Gather all the tools and ingredients.
- 3
In a large bowl, use a fork to mix the sourdough starter, water, flour, and salt until a rough dough forms.
- 4
Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel or plastic wrap (loosely) and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
- 5
Drizzle olive oil over the dough and gently mix it in with your hands until fully incorporated.
- 6
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise at room temperature for about 4–6 hours. During the first 2 hours, perform a stretch and fold every 30 minutes to strengthen the dough. To perform a stretch and fold, lift one side of the dough, stretch it upward, and fold it back over itself. Rotate the bowl and repeat on all four sides.
- 7
Lightly oil a square baking pan. Gently tip the dough out of the bowl into the pan, allowing it to fall naturally without deflating it. If the dough does not spread to the corners yet, that’s normal. During the next proof it will relax and fill the pan. Do not press the dough flat at this stage. Let it spread naturally during proofing.
- 8
Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap or a lid and place it in the refrigerator to proof overnight, or for about 6–8 hours.
- 9
The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Let the dough sit at room temperature for 20–30 minutes after removing from the fridge so it relaxes before dimpling.
- 10
Drizzle a little olive oil over the surface and gently stretch the dough to fill the pan if needed.
- 11
Use your fingers to press dimples across the surface of the dough.
- 12
Sprinkle rosemary and flaky sea salt over the top.
- 13
Bake in a preheated oven at 220°C for 22–25 minutes until golden brown.
- 14
Let the focaccia cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack to prevent the bottom from becoming soggy.
- 15
Cool slightly before slicing.
- 16
Serving suggestions: Sourdough focaccia is delicious served warm with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It also makes excellent sandwich bread or a side for soups and salads.
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