Focaccia

This is my simple, pretty much foolproof recipe for a perfect focaccia. It's a very easy to create different flavours of focaccia so you can easily use more garlic, or no garlic, sun-dried tomatoes or thyme instead of rosemary.. the choices are endless. You can use wholemeal flour instead of plain white but the texture will be different.
For this recipe I've used the garlic, rosemary and rock salt purely as toppings and not included them in the dough. If you want, increase the amount of garlic and rosemary, chop them finely and add to the dry ingredients before adding your water to make the dough.

Recipe
225g plain white flour (no need to use strong white flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 sachet dried yeast
150ml warm water
1 tbsp good olive oil
Topping
5 or 6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
several sprigs of rosemary
large grain sea salt
good extra virgin olive oil

Method
Put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl then add the tablespoon of olive oil, add the water and bring together into a rough dough. If you want to add garlic, rosemary and black olives to the dough do that before you add the water, then mix together. Make sure any additions are well chopped and not in too large pieces.

Once you have brought the ingredients together your dough should look something like this.
Using only a small amount of flour on a board or work surface knead the dough for 10 minutes or until it looks smooth and shiny.

Put the kneaded dough into a clean and lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a hot damp tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30-40 minutes. The time you need to rise the dough will depend on the temperature of the place you leave the dough. It will double in size and look slightly spongy when it's ready for a second light knead.

Once the dough has gone through the first rise, take it out of the bowl and on a lightly floured surface knead for a minute or two only. Roll out the dough to roughly 1cm thick. I like to bake my breads on an oven tray covered in parchment (baking) paper. That way I find you don't need to oil anything and the bread never sticks.
Traditionally focaccia is tear drop shaped but that's just a matter of aesthetics. Whatever shape yours ends up won't affect the taste!

I like to make my indentations (use knuckles) on the dough now, it's traditional to do it after the second rise and before you add any toppings. Cover the dough with lightly oiled clingfilm and allow it to rise a second time. At this stage I slice my garlic and wash the rosemary and pre-heat the oven to 200C, 400F or gas mark 6. By the time the oven is heated the bread will be ready for topping.

In the indentations (make them now if you didn't do them before) place the garlic slices, the sprigs of rosemary and a good sprinkling of extra virgin olive oil.
Bake in a heated oven for 25-28 minutes until golden brown. The bread is done when if you tap the underneath and it sounds hollow.
Put the bread on a cooling rack, pour some more olive oil over it and sprinkle a generous amount of sea salt over the focaccia.

Focaccia is best eaten straight away and is yummy with all kinds of dishes.

You can replace the garlic and rosemary with an equal amount of sun-dried tomatoes and thyme.