Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread product similar in style and
texture to pizza doughs. It may be topped with herbs or other ingredients.
Focaccia is popular in Italy and is usually seasoned with olive oil, salt,
sometimes herbs, and may at times be topped with onion, cheese and meat. It
might also be flavored with a number of vegetables.
Focaccia can be used as a side to many meals, as a base for pizza, or as
sandwich bread.
The common-known focaccia is salt focaccia. Focaccia dough are similar in style
and texture to pizza dough, consisting of high-gluten flour, oil, water, salt
and yeast. It is typically rolled out or pressed by hand into a thick layer of
dough and then baked in a stone-bottom or hearth oven. Bakers often puncture the
bread with a knife to relieve bubbling on the surface of the bread.
Also common is the practice of dotting the bread. This creates multiple wells in
the bread by using a finger or the handle of a utensil to poke the unbaked
dough. As a way to preserve moisture in the bread, olive oil is then spread over
the dough, by hand or with a pastry brush prior to rising and baking. In the
northern part of Italy, lard will sometimes be added to the dough, giving the
focaccia a softer, slightly flakier texture. Focaccia recipes are widely
available, and with the popularity of bread machines, many cookbooks now provide
versions of dough recipes that do not require hand kneading.
The primary difference between conventional pizza (round, Neapolitan pizza) and
focaccia is that pizza dough uses very little leavening (baker�s yeast),
resulting in a very thin, flat and flexible crust, while focaccia dough uses
more leavening, causing the dough to rise significantly higher. The added
leavening firms the crust and gives focaccia the capacity to absorb large
amounts of olive oil. Unleavened pizza dough is already too dense to absorb much
olive oil. A conventional loaf of bread is too tall to absorb olive oil all the
way through to its center. Being shorter in height than a conventional loaf and
less dense than a pizza dough, focaccia can indeed absorb olive oil all the way
to its center or at least nearly so. As such, focaccia might well be thought of
as "olive oil bread".
Focaccia is most often square whereas conventional pizza is more commonly round.
Focaccia most often employs more salt than pizza.
There exist traditional Italian pizza recipes, incorporating more leavening, in
amounts similar to focaccia, especially in southern Italy, and specifically
sfinciuni (Sicilian pizza). If these leavened pizzas were to incorporate
equivalent amounts of olive oil in the dough, they would be very similar to a
focaccia, except perhaps for the herbs or toppings used.
Similarly any "thick-crust" pizza that incorporates large amounts of olive oil
would be very similar to focaccia, again except for the variance in the herbs
and toppings employed.
Contrary to pizza where more than one topping is often found mixed on the same
pizza, toppings are not commonly mixed on one focaccia although one topping and
one herb might be mixed. Whereas pizza often has toppings peppered only
intermittently on its surface, on focaccia, a single topping is often layered
more uniformly and thick.
In Ancient Rome, panis focacius was a flat bread baked on the hearth. The word
is derived from the Latin focus meaning "hearth, place for baking." The basic
recipe is thought by some to have originated with the Etruscans or ancient
Greeks, but today it is widely associated with Ligurian cuisine.
As the tradition spread, the different dialects and diverse local ingredients
resulted in a large variety of bread (some may even be considered cake). Due to
the number of small towns and hamlets dotting the coast of Liguria, the focaccia
recipe has fragmented into countless variations (from the biscuit-hard focaccia
of Camogli to the oily softness of the one made in Voltri), with some bearing
little resemblance to its original form. The most extreme example is the
specialty "focaccia col formaggio" (focaccia with cheese) which is made in Recco,
near Genoa.
Other than the name, this Recco version bears no resemblance to other focaccia
varieties, having a caill� and cheese filling sandwiched between two layers of
paper-thin dough. It is even being considered for European Union PGI status.
Regional variations also exist, such as focaccia dolce (sweet focaccia), popular
in some parts of north-western Italy, consisting of a basic focaccia base and
sprinkled lightly with sugar, or including raisins, honey, or other sweet
ingredients.
Focaccia is present in many variants in Italy itself, for example the focaccia
alla genovese, originated in Genoa, or the focaccia alla messinese, from
Messina. Another widespread variation is the focaccia barese (or "focaccia alla
barese"), common in the provinces of Bari, Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto. This
focaccia is at least partially made with hard wheat flour. It usually comes in
three variations: classic focaccia with fresh tomatoes, and often olives as
well, potato focaccia with potato slices 5 mm thick and white focaccia with salt
grains and rosemary. Some other variations include peppers, onions, eggplant or
other vegetables.
In Burgundy, focaccia is called "foisse" or "fouaisse", and in Catalonia,
Provence and Languedoc it's "fogassa" or, more commonly, the French "fougasse".
In Argentina, it is widely consumed under the name fugazza, derived from fug�ssa
in the native language of Argentina's many Ligurian immigrants. The Spaniards
call it "hogaza".
In American English, it is sometimes referred to as focaccia bread. The
Sicilian-style pizza, and the Roman pizza bianca (white pizza) can be considered
a variant of focaccia. Focaccia is used extensively as a sandwich bread outside
of Italy.
Sweet focaccia or Focaccia veneta is a cake, typical of Venetian Easter
tradition. Unlike the other kinds of focaccia, it is based on eggs, sugar and
butter, instead of olive oil and salt. This makes its recipe and use unique
across be very similar to other Venetian cakes like pandoro.
In westernmost region of Italy, across the french border, there's a Christmas
and New Year Eve cake called focaccia, fougasse or tarte glac�e, topped by a
sugar and egg-white gla�age, commercially known as Focaccia di Susa. A ciambella
shaped version is called tarte couronne or couroun.
In South Tyrol and in the small village of Krimml in Austria, the so-called "Osterfochaz"
(in Krimml "Fochiz"), is the traditional Easter gift of the Godparents to their
Godchildren.
Therefore, the bread is slightly thinner in the center, to put in the coloured
Easter eggs.
Nutrition Facts about Focaccia Bread
Serving Size 2 oz (57 g)
Per Serving % Value
Calories 160
Calories from Fat 27
Total Fat 3g 5%
Sodium 330mg 14%
Carbohydrates 29g 10%
Dietary Fiber 1g 4%
Sugars 1g
Protein 5g
McDonald's is giving its customers in India an option to choose their own
burger buns, in a global first for the world's largest restaurant chain, as it
looks to expand its customer base with healthier options and revive stagnating
sales. Customers across western and southern India can now choose from two buns,
whatever burger they order. The burgers with the healthier Focaccia buns, which
McDonald's recently introduced.
