Focaccia with Caramelised Onion, Thyme, and Flaky Salt
Dimpled, oily, gold-topped Italian comfort
Focaccia with Caramelised Onion, Thyme, and Flaky Salt
Ingredients
- 500g strong white bread flour
- 400ml water, lukewarm
- 7g instant dried yeast
- 10g fine sea salt
- 1 tsp caster sugar
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the tin
- 3 large onions, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- Leaves from 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
- Flaky sea salt, for the top
Method
- Whisk the yeast and sugar into the lukewarm water and leave for 5 minutes until frothy.
- Mix in the flour and fine salt to a very wet, sticky dough. Add 2 tbsp of the olive oil and mix again.
- Cover and leave at room temperature for 1 hour, giving the dough one set of stretch-and-folds in the bowl after 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the onions slowly in the butter and 1 tbsp oil over a low heat for 30-40 minutes, stirring often, until soft, deep gold and sweet. Stir in the balsamic and cool.
- Oil a large baking tray generously. Tip in the dough, drizzle with 2 tbsp oil, and stretch it gently to fill the tin. If it springs back, rest 10 minutes and stretch again.
- Cover loosely and leave to rise for 45 minutes until pillowy and risen.
- Heat the oven to 220C. Dimple the dough all over with oiled fingertips, pressing right down to the tin.
- Scatter over the caramelised onions and thyme, drizzle with the last tablespoon of oil, and sprinkle generously with flaky salt.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes until deep golden and crisp at the edges. Lift onto a rack and let it cool a little before cutting.
Focaccia was the bread that taught me wet doughs are not to be feared. For years I thought soft, oily, dimpled focaccia was a bakery thing, something that required equipment or instinct I did not possess. Then I made it once, almost by accident, and discovered it is among the most forgiving breads there is. The dough is so wet it practically makes itself, the only real technique is dimpling it with your fingers like you are annoyed at it, and the reward is a tray of golden, salty, oil-glossed bread that disappears within the hour.
The twist that makes this version sing is the onions. Plain focaccia with rosemary and salt is a fine thing, but a slow tangle of caramelised onions pressed into the dimples turns it into something you serve to people you are trying to impress. Cooking the onions down properly — low and slow, until they collapse into sweet, jammy gold — is the only part that takes patience, and it is worth every minute. A splash of balsamic at the end gives them a faint sharp edge that cuts through all the richness beneath.
1 A bread shaped by oil
Focaccia comes from Liguria, the slip of Italian coast curving around Genoa, where it is eaten at all hours: split for breakfast, torn alongside lunch, snatched as a mid-morning spuntino. The name traces back to the Latin panis focacius, meaning bread baked on the hearth, on the focus, which was the fireplace at the heart of a Roman home. It is one of the oldest styles of bread in the Mediterranean, and it has barely needed to change.
What sets it apart is the sheer quantity of good olive oil. Oil goes into the dough, under it in the tin, over the top before baking, and often again the moment it comes out of the oven. That oil is not incidental; it fries the base to a crisp shell, keeps the crumb tender and rich, and carries the flavour of the salt and herbs into every bite. Skimping on it is the one mistake that will let a focaccia down, so be generous and unembarrassed about it.
2 The art of the dimple
Dimpling is the signature move and the most satisfying part of the whole process. With oiled fingertips you press firmly all over the risen dough, pushing right down to the bottom of the tin to leave deep little wells across the surface. This is not just for looks, though the pockmarked landscape it creates is undeniably handsome.
Those dimples are reservoirs. They catch and hold the oil, the salt and, here, the sweet onions, so that nothing rolls off the top during baking. As the bread rises in the oven the wells stay lower than the puffed ridges around them, and the oil pooling in them fries those spots to a slightly crisper, more caramelised finish. The contrast between the crisp dimples and the soft pillowy ridges is the whole pleasure of good focaccia.
3 Getting the texture right
The key to that open, airy, slightly chewy crumb is hydration — keeping the dough genuinely wet. It will feel alarmingly loose and sticky, and your instinct will be to add flour. Resist it. A drier dough makes a denser, more bread-roll-like focaccia, pleasant but not the cloud you are after. Wet hands and an oiled surface make the stickiness manageable; the dough firms up as it proves and bakes.
A slow first rise builds flavour, and you can stretch this further if you like. Mix the dough the night before, leave it covered in the fridge overnight, then bring it to room temperature, transfer to the tin, and carry on. The long cold ferment deepens the taste considerably and spreads the work across two days.
4 Serving and variations
Focaccia is at its peak warm, within an hour or two of baking, when the base still crackles and the top is glossy. Tear rather than slice if you can; it feels right. It wants almost nothing alongside it, though a saucer of more olive oil for dipping never goes amiss.
Once you have the base method, the toppings are yours. Halved cherry tomatoes pressed into the dimples blister beautifully; thin slices of potato with rosemary make a famous Ligurian version; olives, garlic, or a scatter of grated parmesan all belong here. But the caramelised onion and thyme combination is the one I come back to, generous with the flaky salt, every single time.
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