Since I started baking with sourdough starter and developing my own recipes, my go-to loaf has been Sourdough Cabin Bread: freeform, crusty, and the right shape and texture for everything from a sandwich or French toast to chunks for dipping in soup and cubes for turning into Panzanella. If this bread has a fault, it’s that it keeps cooking through to the center after you pull it from the oven, which means it really should cool completely before you slice it.

A desire for hot-from-the-oven bread tops my reasons for making the sourdough focaccia recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. Not only can it be eaten hot, but it prefers to be eaten as fresh as possible. Focaccia becomes stale quickly, so I intentionally scaled the recipe to a small pan.

Learn more about variations on focaccia and get the complete recipe for Herb-and-Salt Sourdough Focaccia in my column. If you need starter, you can request it in the Sharing fermented starters Facebook group. Sourdough starter loves to be shared, so if you already have an active jar in your kitchen, I encourage you to share your starter through that group.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

When you’re making this week’s recipe, a few of these tips and tricks may come in handy:

• I’ve scaled this recipe for a 9-by-13 inch jellyroll pan and have learned not to try to stretch it into a larger one. Overstretched dough will be just as tasty but lose some of the inner texture that makes focaccia different from other bread loaves. If your pan is slightly larger, leave the edges unfilled by dough; for a significantly larger pan, you can make a 1-1/2 or double batch of the recipe.
• Once it’s in the pan, you can consider toppings. It may be tempting to think of this dough as a deep-dish pizza, but overloading the top can prevent it from rising evenly, again at the cost of the texture. The recipe includes my favorite variation that keeps it simple with a sprinkling of herbs and salt.
• For a sweet focaccia, I often add a teaspoon of sugar or honey to the dough and then fold dried fruit into it during the final fold-and-rest cycle. To sweeten it with marmalade instead, heat a couple of tablespoons until syrupy and gently brush it on the dough after you’ve dimpled the surface; take care to keep the marmalade from flowing over the dough edges into the pan, where it will tend to burn when baked.
• Leftovers taste best toasted at a low setting. They can also be cut into breadsticks or croutons and baked at 325°F for 10 to 15 minutes, until crispy. A food processor quickly turns once-baked focaccia into soft bread crumbs or the twice-baked breadsticks or croutons into toasted ones.

Besides eating focaccia on its own as a snack, I enjoy squares and breadsticks alongside soups like 30-Minute Tomato Soup. You can find more soup recipes in the recipe index.

Need starter? Join the Sharing fermented starters Facebook group to request sourdough starter, scoby, kefir grains, and more. If you are not a Facebook user, contact me by January 31, 2024, for details on how to request sourdough starter directly from me.