Overnight Sourdough Focaccia
This is the bread that finally made my starter earn its counter space. Total hands-on time is under half an hour; the other twenty hours the dough works alone — a slow bulk rise, a cold overnight proof, and a final warm-up before you dimple it into an oiled pan. High hydration, no kneading, no stand mixer. The only skill required is leaving it alone.
mostly unattended — the clock does the work
By @dave
- submitted
- kitchen-tested
- community-validated
- editor-verified
- featured
Ingredients
for 1 loaf
- 500 gbread flour
or: all-purpose flour · decent stand-in — Hold back 25 ml of the water — AP flour absorbs less and the dough gets sloppy.
- 400 mlwater — lukewarm, about 27°C
- 100 gsourdough starter — active and recently fed — it should float in water
- 10 gfine sea salt
- 60 mlolive oil — divided: pan, dough top, and your hands
- 1 tspflaky salt
- 2 sprigsrosemary — leaves pickedoptional
Equipment
checked against your kitchen
- ✓oven
- ✓kitchen scaleoptional
Strongly recommended — this dough is a hydration ratio, not a cup count.
What cooks learned
Only 6 cooks have logged this one in Cook Mode so far — not enough to say anything about where it goes wrong.
Method
- 1
Stir the flour and water together in a large bowl until no dry patches remain — shaggy is fine. Cover and rest 30 minutes (autolyse).
35 min · 5 min attention⏱ Autolyse · 30 min - 2
Spread the starter and salt over the dough. Pinch and fold with wet hands until both fully disappear into the dough — about 3 minutes of squelching. It will look worse before it looks better.
8 min - 3
Bulk rise at room temperature for 4 hours. At each hour, wet a hand and give the dough one set of stretch-and-folds — lift a side, stretch it up, fold it over; quarter-turn; repeat four times. Two minutes of work per hour, that is all.
4 h · 8 min attention⏱ Bulk rise · 4 hDone when: Domed and jiggly, grown by half, with big lazy bubbles at the edges.
→ the dough
- 4
Pour 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a 23×33 cm metal pan and spread it everywhere. Scrape the dough in seam-side down and coax it gently toward the corners. If it fights back, stop — it will relax in the fridge.
5 min - 5
Cover the pan tightly and refrigerate overnight — 12 hours is the sweet spot, anywhere from 8 to 16 works. This cold proof is where the flavor happens.
12 h · 1 min attention⏱ Cold proof · 12 h - 6
Take the pan out and let the dough come back to life at room temperature, about 2 hours. It should spread to fill the pan on its own.
2 h · 1 min attention⏱ Final proof · 2 hDone when: Fills the pan and wobbles like set custard when you nudge it.
- 7
Oil your hands and the dough top with most of the remaining olive oil. Dimple firmly: press all ten fingertips straight down to the pan bottom, everywhere. Scatter the flaky salt and rosemary.
5 minDone when: Deep craters that hold pools of oil without springing fully back.
- 8
waits for: step 5
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 230°C with a rack in the center.
30 min · 1 min attention230°C ambient - 9
waits for: steps 7 and 8
Bake 25–30 minutes until the top is deep golden and the edges have fried crisp in the oil. Rotate the pan once at 15 minutes if your oven runs uneven.
28 min · 2 min attention230°C ambient⏱ Bake · 25 minDone when: Deep gold on top; the bottom is crisp when you lift a corner with a spatula.
- 10
Slide the focaccia out onto a rack immediately so the bottom stays crisp. Cool 15 minutes before cutting — it is still baking inside.
15 min · 1 min attention⏱ Cool · 15 min
Why this grade?
- community provenance+40
- validation: community-validated+12
- 19 verified cooks+11.7
- 89% success across 19 reports+5.8
- Trust score70/100