📌 ABOUT GEMMA & BIGGER BOLDER BAKING 📌 I’m Gemma Stafford, a professional chef originally from Ireland, two-time cookbook author, and the host of Bigger Bolder Baking. I’m passionate about sharing my years of baking expertise to show you how to bake with confidence anytime, anywhere! Join millions of other Bold Bakers in the community for new videos at 8:30 am Pacific Time every Thursday!
A decade of baking bigger and bolder with home bakers like you!
I’ve been fortunate to share my bold baking style with millions of fans on television and online: Netflix’s “Nailed It!”, Food Network’s “Best Baker in America,” "Baker's Dozen" on Hulu, and segments produced for "The Today Show."
This channel, my website, and my two cookbooks all build on my career as a professional chef, which has seen me work in every kind of baking setting you can imagine – from a rundown Tuscan villa, to an Irish priory, to a Michelin-starred restaurant. I’ve had to become creative, imaginative, and bold… and that’s what I want to bring to every one of my “Bold Bakers”!
Bold Bakers I love the convenience of
pizza dough that you
can buy at the store.
But did you know how versatile it can be?
I'm going to show you how to
make a pizza dough for Katja.
And it is out of this world.
It is so easy.
All you need is a bag of pizza dough,
some pesto, some olive oil
and some cherry tomatoes.
That is it. Check out how to do it.
So here I have an eight by eight pan.
I like this size because it just means
you get a really thick focaccia,
which means like extra bubbles, which is
what my favorite part of it is.
Here I've got some lovely
olive oil, good quality olive oil.
I'm going to put that in the pan.
So for this recipe, you
want a pound of pizza dough.
So I'm just going to roll it over in my
oil to coat it and get it nice and oily.
I think my favorite part of focaccia, of
eight-time focaccia, is
just how oily the bread gets.
And when you're eating it, it's also like
your hands almost get like moist.
It's so delicious, salty and yummy.
So what I'm going to do is use my fingers
to just push the dough
into the corners of the pan.
So if you can't buy a bag of pizza dough,
you can use any recipe
that you find online.
And I do have my no need pizza dough on
BiggerBolderBaking.com.
The reason I do specify a pound of dough
is because the pound of dough is the
perfect size for an eight by eight.
If you do a nine by 13,
you don't have enough dough.
You're not able to reach the sides.
So this is what we're looking for.
So that's really the
heavy lifting of this recipe.
What you want to do now is cover it in
cling wrap like we do any used dough.
We're going to lay a clean kitchen towel
over it, keep it nice and snug.
And you want to leave it out at room
temperature for a minimum of four hours,
but up to six hours.
Now, I really need
you to follow this step.
I'll tell you why. The longer it rests,
the slower time it
has to get even bigger.
It's what's going to give you those big,
lovely bubbles that we
all love about focaccia.
So go four hours, go
five hours, go six hours.
If you have the luxury of time, it will
really make all the difference.
So I gave my focaccia
plenty of time and look at this.
It should rise up a lot
towards the top of the tin.
Look how it's nice and jiggly.
This is why I love working with bread.
Just a few ingredients of yeast and
flour, a little bit of salt and water
makes like these incredible breads like a
whole different variety.
So now here's what we want
to do with our little fingers.
We're going to dimple our focaccia.
Just a few dimples in there.
Gorgeous. You see all
those big, beautiful bubbles.
This is why I want to go,
you know, at least four hours.
Now on the top of this, I'm
going to add my cherry tomatoes.
Tomatoes are in season right now.
They're beautiful and flavorful and it
just kind of makes it
a little bit meatier.
But you can do whatever you want.
You can do roasted
garlic, whatever you like.
Now often on focaccia, you will see
people use rosemary or sage
or different types of herbs.
What I'm going to do is actually I got
some store-bought pesto.
So we're going really semi-homemade here.
And I'm going to just kind
of dollop that around the top.
With pesto, I find
the flavor to be strong.
So I just going to add
a little bit all over.
It has a lovely fresh flavor, almost kind
of zesty, if you will.
And it has all the
lovely built-in ingredients.
Has cheese in there. It has oil, all the
things that we love.
So there you go.
Our pizza dough focaccia is ready to go
into the oven in no time at all.
Focaccia loves a really hot oven, so
we're going to bake it
at 425 degrees Fahrenheit,
220 degrees Celsius for
roughly around 22 minutes or so.
You want to see it get
lovely and golden brown on top,
but don't let it get too
dark because the pesto can burn.
When your focaccia is golden brown on
top, it is ready to come out of the oven.
Often with bread, I
always say let it cool down,
but I have to say I can't
resist with this focaccia.
I like to serve it hot from the oven.
I love seeing the pesto get nice and
toasty and the way that
the tomatoes blistered.
It's really beautiful.
Once you cut into this bread, you
instantly see the texture
that you created over the proofing time.
This recipe is a really lovely one
because it's semi-homemade,
it's easy to pull together and you can
customize it any way you want.
I really enjoyed this
recipe and it makes me think,
what else can we make
using a bag of pizza dough?
Let me know in the comments below and
I'll see you back here again really soon.
