Shockingly Easy Focaccia is No Joke

Ever cook a recipe from a magazine with only a total fail and hungry crying kids to show for it? In posts tagged “‘zine cuisine” we cook recipes from magazines to see how, and if, they work for regular, half-drunk people on a weeknight.

Bon Appetit Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia

My rating: Oh, hell yeah! I’ll make it everyday.

This recipe, from the February issue of Bon Appetit, caught my eye early in the corona virus shutdown. I’ve never been a very active or successful baker but like everyone else I had time on my hands and a need for self sufficiency. And easy is easy right? Shockingly easy is even better. I had one pack of hoarded yeast left so I gave it a try.

It would be easy for the cynical among us to see the proliferation of no-knead recipes as a sure sign of our diminished work ethic and on-demand culture. This, at first was my inclination, but this recipe changed my mind. No bread is ready quickly whether you knead it or not and this recipe works like a charm. So plan ahead.

Bubbly spongy dough after the first rise.

All told this recipe takes about a day and is very hands-off and flexible. Five minutes to mix the ingredients, 8 to 24 hours for the first rise, 2 to 4 hours for the second rise, and 30 minutes to bake. The long rise times allow you to start without calculating to the minute when you can get it in the oven or when you need to eat.

I've made this recipe twice. Once with an envelope of dry active yeast and once with instant yeast. Once the first rise was 20 hours and once it was 10. Both times we had fresh delicious bread with fried crispy edges and soft spongy interior.

Dough after dimpled and seasoned with sea salt, black pepper, and Espelette pepper.

I seasoned the top of mine with coarse chunks of sea salt and Espelette pepper we got in France last year. You could put anything you like. Next time I will top it with Everything Bagel seasoning or pesto.

The recipe gives options to use a small 9 x 13 inch pan which is what I did or a larger sheet pan. The small pan gives you thick bread you can cut horizontally to make sandwiches. I stuffed mine with fried eggs. Next time I will cut it like a New England hotdog bun (lobster roll) and fill it with meatballs and cheese. A minute under the broiler, a stack of napkins, some beers, and Netflix makes for a nice evening in quarantine.

My shockingly easy focaccia compared to the spread in Bon Appetit. Not bad.