Baking Great Bread at HomeYour edible canvas for peak summer produce
BeginnerSummer GardenFocaccia
by Henry Hunter Jr.
A pillowy overnight focaccia you decorate like a garden
Fermentation
12-18 hours (cold)
Bake Time
25-28 minutes
Yield
One 9x13 pan, serves 10 to 12
Perfection is not required
"Perfection is not required. Progress is."— Henry Hunter Jr.
By Henry Hunter Jr., founder of Crust & Crumb Academy and Baking Great Bread at Home.
Authentic Flavor
Come bake this one with us. Every Saturday, the kitchen at Crust and Crumb Academy fills up with bakers building their own gardens and cheering each other on. Join us at https://www.skool.com/crust-crumb-academy-7621/about
Equipment Needed
Ingredients
The Dough
One bowl, no mixer needed. If you can stir, you can make this.
The Pan and Finishing
Do not skimp on the oil. It is what gives focaccia those crisp, golden edges.
The Garden
This is your paint box. Use at least three colors and up to six. Swap in whatever your garden or market is giving you: mini sweet peppers, radish, scallion, asparagus, kalamata or green olives, or edible flowers. Skip anything watery like mushrooms or cucumber, they weep and go soggy.
Pro Tip
Prep your whole garden before you touch the dough. Slice everything, toss it in a little olive oil in separate bowls, and have it ready. Once the dough is dimpled and puffed you will want to work fast, not go hunting for a knife. One more thing: lay cut cherry tomatoes cut-side down. Face up they weep water and can leave a soggy spot.
Day 1, Evening
Mix the Dough
Everything goes in one bowl. No kneading, no mixer, no fuss. You are just bringing a shaggy, wet dough together and letting time do the heavy lifting.
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Whisk the dry
In your large bowl, whisk together the bread flour, instant yeast, and fine sea salt so the salt and yeast are evenly spread. This matters more than it sounds. Dumping salt straight onto yeast can stall it.
Add the wet
Pour in the water and the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Stir with a sturdy spoon or your hand until you do not see any dry flour. It will look rough, sticky, and a little ugly. That is exactly right. This is a wet dough at 75% , so resist the urge to add more flour.
Rest
Cover the bowl and walk away for 15 minutes. The flour drinks up the water, the dough relaxes, and the next step gets a whole lot easier.
⏱ Wait Time
15 minutes
Pro Tip
No scale yet? Get one. Focaccia is forgiving, but bread baking gets easier and more repeatable the day you start weighing your flour and water.
Precise Timers
Use these interactive timers to track your stages.
Flour Hydrating
Day 1, Evening
Build Strength with Bowl Folds
Instead of kneading, you will strengthen this dough with a few gentle folds right in the bowl. This is where the big, open holes come from.
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First fold
Wet one hand. Reach under one side of the dough, stretch it up, and fold it over to the middle. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat. Go around four times, so the dough pulls into a rough ball. This is a .
Fold three more times
Cover the bowl and rest 30 minutes, then fold again the same way. Do this a total of four rounds of folds over about 90 minutes. With each round you will feel the dough get smoother, tighter, and stronger. That is the gluten waking up.
⏱ Wait Time
About 90 minutes
Pro Tip
If you get busy and miss a fold or two, do not sweat it. Two good folds beat four rushed ones. The dough is on your schedule, not the other way around. One summer note: heat speeds everything up, so in a warm kitchen your folds and rises will move faster than the times say. Go by the look of the dough.
Gentle wins
A wet dough like this one is nearly impossible to knead on a counter. It just sticks to everything. Folding in the bowl builds the same gluten network without fighting the stickiness, and without working the dough so hard that it goes dense.
Rest is doing work
The magic is really happening during the 30-minute rests, not during the folds themselves. The gluten relaxes and reorganizes on its own. Your job is just to nudge it along a few times.
The Takeaway
Fold, rest, repeat. Time and a light touch do more than muscle ever will.
Precise Timers
Use these interactive timers to track your stages.
Between Folds
Overnight
The Overnight Cold Rise
Now the dough goes to sleep in the fridge. This slow, cold rise is where the flavor lives. It is the difference between fine focaccia and focaccia people remember.
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Cover and chill
Cover the bowl tightly and put it in the fridge for 12 to 18 hours. Overnight is perfect. This long, cold deepens the flavor and gives you that airy, bubbly crumb. In high summer, lean toward the shorter end. A dough pushed to 24 hours in the heat can over-ferment and bake up flat.
Trust the
The dough will rise slowly in the fridge and should look puffy and full of bubbles the next day. If your kitchen ran warm and it looks very active early, that is fine. Cold dough is easier to handle anyway.
⏱ Wait Time
12 to 18 hours
Pro Tip
Short on time? See the FAQ for a same-day version. The overnight path just tastes better, so plan ahead when you can.
Day 2, Morning
Into the Pan, Second Rise
The dough moves to its oiled pan and gets a warm, lazy rise until it is pillowy and ready for your garden.
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Oil the pan well
Drizzle 2 tablespoons of the finishing olive oil into your 9x13 metal pan and spread it across the bottom and up the sides. A parchment sling underneath makes lifting it out later easy, but the oil alone will do.
Transfer and stretch
Scrape the cold dough into the pan. Drizzle a little oil on top, then use your fingertips to gently coax it toward the corners. It will fight you and shrink back. That is fine. Let it rest 15 minutes and stretch again. It usually takes two or three tries over an hour to fill the pan.
Warm rise
Cover loosely and let it rise at warm room temperature until it looks puffy, jiggly, and full of life, about 2 to 3 hours. This second is what gives you the tall, cloud-like lift and good . Watch the dough, not the clock. In a hot summer kitchen this can finish well under 2 hours.
⏱ Wait Time
2 to 3 hours
Pro Tip
Cool summer kitchen from the AC? Set the pan on top of the fridge or in a turned-off oven with just the light on. Warmth is your friend here.
Precise Timers
Use these interactive timers to track your stages.
Stretch Rest
Warm Rise
Day 2
Dimple, Oil, and Plant Your Garden
Here is the fun part, and the part where most people get it wrong. Read the whole phase before you start so your garden survives the oven.
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Dimple with confidence
Oil your fingertips, then press straight down through the dough to the bottom of the pan, all over, like you are playing piano hard. Those deep dimples hold oil and give focaccia its look. Press firmly, but do not fully deflate it.
Oil everything
Drizzle the last tablespoon of finishing oil over the top so a little pools in the dimples. Then oil your vegetables too. Every single piece of your garden should be lightly slicked in olive oil before it touches the dough. This is the one rule that saves your bake.
Plant the sturdy pieces
Lay down your design with the tomatoes, peppers, onions, and olives now, pressing each piece gently into a dimple so it anchors. See the Design Your Garden section below for four ways to build it. Hold your delicate herbs back for now.
Salt and go
Finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt over the top. Your soft herbs like dill, basil, and parsley go on later, in the oven, so they do not burn to a crisp. Now you are ready to bake.
Pro Tip
Toppings shift and spread as the bread puffs in the oven. Cluster your design a little tighter than looks right. The focaccia will push everything apart as it rises.
Shaping
Design Your Garden
Focaccia is a blank canvas, and this is where the whole community gets to show off. There is no wrong design. Before you start, remember the two rules that never change: oil every piece so nothing burns, and hold your delicate herbs until the last 10 minutes in the oven. Pick a style below, or make up your own.
Flower Garden
The classic, and the one that makes people gasp. Flowers, stems, and grass built from vegetables.
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Lay your stems
Run long chives, thin scallion strips, or thin asparagus spears upward from the bottom of the pan. These are your flower stems and grass.
Build the blooms
At the top of each stem, arrange thin bell pepper strips or red onion slivers in a ring to make petals. A cherry tomato half or an olive in the center becomes the flower's heart.
Add leaves and fill
Tuck small basil or parsley leaves along the stems as foliage. These sturdier herbs can go on before baking. Scatter a few tomato halves low as bushes.
Wildflower Meadow
The most forgiving design and perfect for first-timers. No straight lines, no pressure.
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Scatter with intention
Toss your oiled vegetables across the whole surface in loose clusters, letting color land wherever it wants. Think of a field, not a bouquet.
Vary the heights
Mix tomato halves, pepper strips, and olives so no two spots look the same. Uneven is the whole point of a meadow.
Summer Sunset
For the baker who wants a picture, not a pattern. A little ambitious, a lot of fun.
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Set the horizon
Lay a band of thin red onion across the middle for a hazy sky, with rows of tomato and yellow pepper below it for hills and fields.
Place the sun
Cluster tomato halves or a ring of yellow pepper in one corner as a low sun. Radiate thin pepper strips outward for rays.
Finish the sky
Once baked and out of the oven, a few torn basil leaves or dill sprigs read as clouds and greenery.
Kids' Garden
Hand the pan to a young baker and let them run with it. Faces, rainbows, their name, whatever they dream up.
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Give them the palette
Set out small bowls of oiled, pre-cut vegetables. Let the kids place every piece. It does not need to look like anything but theirs.
Let them dimple
Little fingers are great at dimpling. Show them how to press down firm, then step back and let them plant their garden.
Proof Test: Before you decorate, make sure the dough is truly ready. It should look puffy and full, and jiggle like a waterbed when you nudge the pan. If it still looks flat and tight, give it more time. A rushed rise gives you dense focaccia, no matter how pretty the top.
Day 2
Bake
High heat and a hot oven give you crisp edges, a golden top, and roasted vegetables nestled into the crumb.
Step by Step
Preheat hot
Preheat your oven to 450F (230C) for at least 30 minutes while the focaccia finishes rising. A truly hot oven and a metal pan are what give you deep golden color instead of pale bread.
Bake
Bake on the lower rack for 25 to 28 minutes, until the top is deep golden and the vegetables look roasted. If a heavily decorated garden is browning too fast, tent it loosely with foil.
Add the delicate herbs
With about 10 minutes left, scatter on your soft fresh herbs and rosemary. Adding them late keeps them green and bright instead of scorched.
Cool and admire
Lift the focaccia out of the pan onto a rack so the bottom stays crisp. Let it cool at least 10 minutes before you cut it. Take your photo first. This one earns it.
Preheat
Bake
Cool
Want extra-crisp sides? Once you lift it out, slide the bare focaccia back onto the oven rack for 5 minutes. Every edge goes golden.
Baking Methods
The reliable path for a golden top and crisp bottom.
Equipment: 9x13 metal baking pan
Preheat
Preheat to 450F (230C) for at least 30 minutes. A hot oven from the start is non-negotiable for color.
Bake low
Bake on the lower rack for 25 to 28 minutes until deep golden. Add delicate herbs in the last 10 minutes.
Crisp the sides
Lift it out of the pan onto a rack. For extra crunch, slide the bare focaccia back onto the rack for 5 more minutes.
"Focaccia is done when it is deep golden all over and the vegetables look roasted, not just warmed. Color is flavor. Do not pull it pale."
Nutrition Facts
Per 1 piece • 12 servings per recipe
* Values are estimates based on standard ingredients; actual values vary by brands and portion size.
Storage
Room Temperature
2 to 3 days, wrapped or in a bread bag. Best the day it is baked.
Refrigerated
Up to 3 days, wrapped in foil. The texture changes but it reheats well.
Frozen
Up to 3 months. Slice before freezing for easy portions.
Refresh
Warm slices in a 350F (175C) oven for 5 to 10 minutes to bring back the crisp crust.
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Troubleshooting
Baker's Notes
Common questions and solutions for perfect results
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