Today’s recipe is for a leavened bread: soft and spongey whole wheat multigrain focaccia.
Do you know what relaxes me a lot? Sinking my fingers into a soft dough, it’s like touching a cloud! So when I want to give myself a moment, I put my hands in the dough and in the end, everyone is thrilled because they can eat something heavenly.
Today’s focaccia is made with whole wheat multigrain flour, rich in fibers from 7 types of grains such as wheat, spelt, rice, oats, corn, rye, and barley that mixed with simple water and a little bit of yeast will create a focaccia with a rustic and very fragrant flavor, perfect to consume as a bread substitute along with cured meats, cheeses, or grilled vegetables. It’s also great for stuffing to make many sandwiches to offer to our guests during a party if you don’t feel like making soft buffet rolls.
The preparation requires many hours of rising but is simple to do. We’ll start with a preferment and then proceed with the dough through some folding phases but don’t worry, there’s nothing difficult!
Now let’s see, step by step, how to make this super focaccia.
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- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very economical
- Rest time: 16 Hours
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 1 focaccia about 1.65 lbs
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 161.62 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 28.89 (g) of which sugars 0.83 (g)
- Proteins 5.16 (g)
- Fat 3.20 (g) of which saturated 0.41 (g)of which unsaturated 2.37 (g)
- Fibers 2.24 (g)
- Sodium 506.28 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 65 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for the Focaccia
- 7 oz whole wheat flour (multigrain)
- 10.5 oz flour 0
- 1.35 cups water
- 3 g dry yeast
- 50 g water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 10 g salt
- to taste seed oil (to grease hands)
- 20 ml water
- 10 ml olive oil
- 5 g salt
Tools
- 1 Scale
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Baking Pan
- 1 Work Surface
Let’s Prepare the Focaccia Together
In a bowl, put the ingredients for the preferment: the flours, water, and yeast. Then, with a wooden spoon, mix until you get a loose mix but try not to leave any free flour. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 12 hours.
Take the risen preferment and pour it into the stand mixer bowl, knead it alone for 3 or 4 minutes, then start adding the water little by little, adding more only after the previous has been absorbed. Before finishing the water, add the salt and then proceed with the remaining water. Continue kneading at medium speed.
Once all the water is added, add the oil in the same way, little by little, waiting for absorption before adding more. Continue kneading at medium speed until the dough is well attached to the hook, if necessary, you can slightly increase the speed.
Grease your hands well with seed oil and put the obtained dough on a well-oiled work surface and make folds by simply lifting the dough so that the hanging parts fall under the dough itself. Do it once placing your hands on the sides of the dough and once placing your hands on the top and bottom. Repeat a couple of times. Put the dough in a large and greased bowl. If you wish, you can also make the folds in a wide but always greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap (or cap) and let rise for an hour.
After an hour of rising, repeat the folds as before, as already mentioned, you can do them in the bowl or pour the dough on a well-oiled work surface. Repeat the folding step two more times, always an hour apart from each other. After the last round of folds, let the dough rise again in the bowl, covered.
After the folds and rising, put the dough in the pan. Take a rectangular pan (mine is 10×14 inches) and grease it, pour the dough inside the pan and spread it with your fingertips until it covers the whole pan. Cover with a cloth and let rise for another 1.5 hours. (I had about 68°F at home)
Meanwhile, as the dough rises for the last time, prepare the brine to pour over it. In a bowl, put two parts of water and one of olive oil and add the salt, stir vigorously to emulsify the ingredients together.
Take the risen dough and sprinkle it with brine using a brush, then make the characteristic holes by sinking your fingertips into the dough (the most beautiful moment of the focaccia… after tasting it, of course!). If you wish, you can put some salt crystals on the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven at a temperature of 374°F for 35/40 minutes, the focaccia should be well golden on the surface and come off the pan easily. If it struggles to detach, it means it’s still a bit moist, so leave it for a few more minutes.
Take the focaccia out of the oven and let it cool before eating it. In the meantime, snap a photo of your soft whole wheat multigrain focaccia and post it on social media tagging me (una riccia che pasticcia on instagram and facebook) and show me how soft it is and what you will eat it with, I will have it with finocchiona and mortadella!!!
A Curly Suggestion
The soft and spongey whole wheat multigrain focaccia keeps well for a couple of days in a bread bag. If you eat it the next day, you can put it back in the oven for a few minutes to make it warm and fragrant again.
FAQ
If I don’t have whole wheat multigrain flour, what can I use?
You can replace the whole wheat multigrain flour with the same amount of whole wheat flour. If you don’t want to make it whole wheat, you can use a type 0 or Manitoba flour, but you will need to remove 0.7 oz of water from the preferment.
