Have you ever had a really good olive oil that you want to just drink? If yes, please keep reading to learn how to create a wonderful vessel for you to transfer that olive oil into your mouth. If you haven’t, then you need to check out La Panza Olive Oil right away, but I’ll tell you more about that later. Let’s get into focaccia. A dimpled, yeasted, flatbread that includes olive oil in the dough as well as a generous drizzle of it on top of the final baked product. Focaccia is the perfect baked item to indulge in and enjoy with fancy olive oil, because when else are you using so much of the stuff? This recipe does require fermenting your dough overnight to develop really good flavor. But an overnight ferment is not as daunting as it seems. Simply make the shaggy dough before you go to bed, cover it, and wake up ready to bake it!
How do I treat my yeast right to make the best Focaccia?
Needing to have the perfect ratio of sugar to yeast and yeast to flour and water to yeast and water to flour and so on and so forth is truly what makes bread baking so finnicky. The important thing that you should know is that I have taken care of these ratios for you. You don’t need to worry if you have too much of one thing or too little of another. I have that all sorted out for you. What you do need to worry about is two important things: temperature and age. If the yeast is old, your bread will struggle to rise. If your temperature is wrong, your bread might not rise at all.
The ideal temperature for yeast activity is between 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit (32-35 degrees Celsius). If your dough is cold, the yeast’s reaction activity will slow down. This will make it take forever for your dough to rise. On the other hand, you do not want to have a temperature over 115 degrees Fahrenheit. This puts you at severe risk of killing your yeast and subsequently having a dough that does not rise. That is why it’s important to make sure that the water you’re adding to your dough is warm, not hot. And you must allow your dough to rise in a warm spot. Fresh yeast is best to bake with; however, you can use sealed yeast up to 2 years after purchasing. Or you can use open packets of yeast up to four months after opening. As long as you are keeping track of your yeast’s age and the water temperature, you should be ready to go to make this focaccia.
Who is La Panza Olive Oil?
Okay, so let’s get down to olive oil. Like I mentioned before, for this focaccia recipe you want a really delicious olive oil, otherwise you’re spending all of your time fermenting your dough and making a beautiful loaf for nothing. Well, not nothing, but you get my point. La Panza Olive Oil is the brand of olive oil that I used for my bread and let me tell you… WOW! I had never really looked into any specialty, fresh, family farmed olive oil until I heard about La Panza. They were kind enough to sponsor this post so that I could tell you just how wonderful the ingredient is that they produce.
La Panza crafts their olive oil on their family ranch in California. They pride themselves on having the freshest olive oil, and after tasting it, I can assure you, freshness matters. Their entire production process is designed to get the oil from the olive to the packaging as quickly as possible. All of their olives are grown and harvested on La Panza Ranch in San Juan Creek Valley, California, a 15,000-acre haven nestled between the La Panza Mountains and the Carrisa Plains. To ensure optimal freshness, the olives are milled on-site, which allows them to process and package their extra virgin olive oil within eight hours of harvesting. How cool is that?!
Different Flavors of Olive Oil?
La Panza has three flavors of olive oil, the chef’s blend (which I recommend for this recipe), the outlaw (which has a little added kick), and the Estate blend (which is recommended for dipping and dripping as it is the smoothest). All of their olive oil comes in a “pantry pouch” which is as adorable as it sounds. Not only is it cute packaging, but the pantry pouch actually is very functional as well. Their unique Pantry Pouch keeps air and light out to preserve the oil’s quality. Unlike a screw-top bottle that allows air in both at the time of bottling and every time you open it for home use, the pantry pouch prevents the oil from getting oxidized, and therefore ruined. I love La Panza’s commitment to fresh, quality, product, and I can assure you that you will love it too!
How Can I Buy La Panza Olive Oil for Myself?
Check out freshestoliveoil.com to order your own pantry pouch today!
Focaccia
Ingredients
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp Warm Water (265 grams)
- ¾ teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
- ½ teaspoon Granulated Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Honey
- 2¼ cups All-Purpose Flour (350 g)
- 2 ½ teaspoons Kosher Salt (12 grams)
- ⅓ cup La Panza Chef's Blend Olive Oil
Instructions
- In a medium-sized, clean bowl, add the water, yeast, granulated sugar, and honey. Allow to dissolve. In a clean, large bowl, add flour and salt. Whisk to combine. Pour in the yeast mixture and olive oil. Stir together with a rubber spatula until just incorporated, and a shaggy dough forms.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl clean and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let sit for 12 hours or over night until doubled in volume.
- Pour 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil on a small rimmed baking sheet. When the dough has fermented for at least 12 hours, gently use a rubber spatula and your hands to peel it away from the sides of the bowl and place it on the oiled baking sheet.
- Add about 1 more tablespoon of olive oil over the dough and spread it across the top of the dough. Gently pull the dough, stretching it to the edge of the pan. The dough will recoil a bit, and so you should stretch it as far as you can, let it set for 15 minutes, and then come back to stretch it again until the dough fits across the entire pan.
- Once the dough is stretched across the pan, dimple the dough with deep dents with your fingers. Let the dough rise for 45 minutes until the dough is light and bubbly.
- When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 450°F. Sprinkle the focaccia with rosemary (if desired) and flaky salt. Bake for 25 minutes or until top is golden and bottom is crisp and golden. Remove from oven.
- Drizzle with 1-2 more tablespoons of olive oil and allow to cool until warm and no longer hot. Serve with a side of olive oil for dipping! Enjoy.
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This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.
