Does foccacia dough need to rise?

December 30, 2020 4:10 AM

I use Samin Nosrat's recipe for Ligurian foccacia bread, and there is conflicting information.

Her written recipe calls for a rise time of 12-14 hours. I've had great success with the recipe. I then watched the Fat episode of Salt Fat Acid Heat on Netflix, and in that episode she goes to Liguria and makes foccacia with a baker and they only let the dough rise for 15 mins. It's possible they just edited out the half a day rise time, but it didn't seem that way. Does the dough really need 12-14 hours to rise? I suppose I can try a batch this way and see what happens, but I'm curious what others think.

posted by archimago to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Just watched the video and I'm pretty sure they skipped both proofing/rising periods (the initial 12 hour rise and the post-shaping 45-minute rise) and only talked about the resting period during the shaping of the bread.

You'd probably get a tasty cracker if you skipped the rises.
posted by mskyle at 4:36 AM on December 30, 2020 [6 favorites]

On a cooking show, it's typical to prep ahead of time so that you can, for instance, demonstrate how the dough is mixed and then (tv magic!) set that aside and pull out the risen dough that was mixed 12-14 hours ago. It's similar to the way that cooking show hosts will finish prepping something, pop it in the oven, and then immediately pull the fully baked item out of a second oven.

On the focaccia front -- with the small amount of yeast in the recipe, you definitely want a longer rise time (and it will be all the more delicious for it! A slow rise promotes better flavor). There are focaccia recipes out there that use 2.25 tsp yeast and rise in a couple hours, but they are far inferior in flavor (I speak from experience!). I definitely recommend following the recipe's instructions on this.
posted by ourobouros at 5:50 AM on December 30, 2020

I’m positive that was just the dough resting period before shaping, or maybe an autolyse step at the very start. 15 minutes is barely enough time for the flour to hydrate or the yeast to get active, but after a rise, it’s just about the right amount of time to let the dough relax if you are stretching it out into a pan and the dough is staunchly resisting.
posted by tchemgrrl at 6:37 AM on December 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes, ot needs to rise, but whether it benefits from a long slow rise as per the recipe is up to your tastebuds.
posted by sid at 9:02 AM on December 30, 2020

I make this recipe very successfully, and I give it the overnight rise that the written recipe calls for.

I'll also say use as much or more oil and salt as Samin says, and err on the side of a longer bake - it comes out of the oven crispy but softens as it cools, so if you want a slight crust to it, you've got to err on the side of longer, and oilier on the bottom and in the corners.
posted by entropone at 10:07 AM on December 30, 2020

I feel like they mention letting it rise for a couple hours, but even that didn’t seem long enough to me so I paused and googled on the spot. The written recipe felt right to me in a way the TV version seemed inadequate, and when I made my own I did it as written. FYI it’s HUGE. I’ve cut the recipe in half and used a quarter sheet pan since that first one. We love bread and had a hard time finishing it.
posted by fedward at 10:22 AM on December 30, 2020

The focaccia recipe I use has an initial rise, then a second shorter rise in the pan. It always gets raves.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:51 PM on December 30, 2020