Sourdough Whole Wheat Focaccia Recipe (2024)

Today we are completing 15 years of our marriage. Looks like a great achievement. But I am doing nothing special for the day. To continue with my similar breads theme, on the third day, I have yet another sourdough bread. After the basic sourdough loaf and the buttery cinnamon rolls, it is time for something savoury. Focaccia is a versatile bread where you can customise the topping as well as the ingredients that go into the dough. If you love cheese, then you can even add it to the topping. This is an Italian bread which is quite famous in the blogging world. The dough is quite different to the cinnamon roll dough. While cinnamon roll dough uses lots of butter, focaccia uses olive oil and the dough is quite tricky to handle. It is sticky and takes a lots of patience to knead because it sticks too much to your hand. Slapping and folding works perfectly well for kneading the focaccia dough.

Be generous in greasing the pan and drizzling on top of the dough. It creates an awesome crisp crust and a soft crumb. Serve this warm out of oven for an amazing treat. Once cool, it lost its crispy crust and became soft. I used garlic, onion and basil mix for the topping. Add any herb you like and if needed also add some grated cheese. But if adding cheese, wait until the focaccia is 90% baked before adding the grated cheese. If left for the whole baking time, you may end up burning it. I made this with whole wheat flour just like the cinnamon roll. And the texture was just fantastic. I usually am not very great fan of using whole wheat flour in bread recipes, except for a few of my favourites, but with sourdough, wheat flour works great. So if you are into trying sourdough, do try it wheat flour too. Don’t get intimidated by sourdough. It is quite friendly and it just needs some patience to bake.

Ingredients:

Firm Starter:

Sourdough Starter – 1/3 cup

Whole Wheat Flour – 1/2 cup

Water – 3-4 tbs

Dough:

Whole Wheat Flour / Atta – 1 cup

Salt – 1 tsp

Olive Oil – 2 tbs

Water – 1/2 cup

Topping:

Garlic – 2 pods, grated

Onion – 2-3 tbs, finely chopped

Olive Oil / Melted Butter – 2 tbs

Dried Basil – 2 tbs

Procedure:

Mix together bubbly sourdough starter along with water and whole wheat flour to make a sticky dough.

Cover and set aside for two hours.

Refrigerate overnight.

Remove it from fridge and set it on counter for four hours.

To the same bowl, add in oil, salt, water and flour.

Mix to form a sticky dough.

Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

Now take it to counter and using a dough scraper, lift it, slap it and fold it. Keep on repeating this for 20 times or until you feel the dough is smooth.

Oil a 7″ square tin and place the dough in it. Add more oil on top and press the dough to fill the base of the tin.

Cover with cling film and set aside until double in volume. It may take two hours to four hours depending upon the temperature of your room.

Preheat oven to 250°C.

Use your fingertips to make indentations on top of the dough.

Add generous olive oil or melted butter in the indentations and sprinkle grated garlic, finely chopped onion and dried basil.

Apply milk wash on top of the bread and bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Once the bread is warm enough, slice it up into squares and serve.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#103

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