About This Recipe

This recipe is the third in a series of focaccia recipes that are meant to be an entire meal in one. This recipe is packed with protein and animal fat, as well as so much flavor.

To be honest, this whole combination was a complete accident. I was preparing to do a spinach and artichoke focaccia, except I did not have the ingredients. Thinking I was going to be able to go to the store before my focaccia dough was ready, I started a dough and then, well, did not make it to the store. Now I had dough, but what to do with it?

Having just finished building a recipe for loaded bialy, I was still obsessing about the flavor combination. But a focaccia isn’t a bialy, so how do I make it work?

The 35 lb tub of bacon grease my husband brought home from work the other day rolled its eyes at this question and barked, “Use me!” from across the room. “Of course!” I thought. Let’s replace the olive oil with bacon grease. And that is where this recipe began.

Since then, I made this recipe several more times to make sure everything was on point. My father-in-law sent me a text in reply to a sample my husband sent him, saying “If you decide to make the bacon focaccia bread again, let me know. I will buy the whole loaf.” This bread has never lasted more than thirty minutes after coming out of the oven.

How to make This focaccia

Original Focaccia Recipe and Video

To watch how to make focaccia dough step-by-step, see the video below. This recipe is simply a variation of my original focaccia recipe, meant to give you yet another way to make this fabulous bread. This means I will not be detailing how to make the focaccia base in this post. To read my full post on focaccia, click here.

Hayden Flour Mills Artisan Bread Flour

Recently, I’ve been working with Hayden Flour Mills Artisan Bread Flour over my usual King Arthur Bread Flour. It is fresh and contains more of the bran and germ from the wheat kernel than other flours, which adds incredible flavor to my bread. I’ve been eager to experiment with and dive into a world of better-for-you and better-tasting sourdough baked goods, and this has been a wonderful start.

After several wins and fails, I’ve finally discovered how to make this flour fit my typical sourdough bread-making routine. Because it is much fresher than what you can buy on grocery store shelves, it has (what is called) increased enzymatic activity. This just means the yeast and bacteria in your starter are very active and multiply much quicker when feeding on this flour, leading to faster fermentation times. To compensate, I reduce the amount of stater I use in my recipe by 5%. In addition, due to the increased percentage of bran and germ, the flour itself can absorb more water, which means I can increase the amount of water I use by 5% as well.

Bacon Grease

Bacon is a Southern obsession, and many cooks in my part of the world save their bacon grease for cooking purposes. Using bacon grease in this recipe not only enhances the flavor by 10,000%, it also paves the way for another use for bacon grease: baking.

In this recipe, I replace olive oil with a whole bunch of bacon grease. Bacon grease both coats the pan and gets dimpled into the focaccia. During the baking and cooling process, the focaccia absorbs all of that grease, creating a stunning and enhanced bacon flavor.

Toppings: Bacon, Ranch, Cheddar

As I mentioned before, this recipe is inspired by loaded bialy, which was inspired by bacon-ranch loaded fries. Bacon, ranch, and cheddar are what make up this to-die-for flavor profile.

Sour cream

Now this is the interesting one, but it really does make the whole bread. For this recipe, I pipe sour cream into the bread. You read that right. I poke holes all over the bread and fill them up with sour cream. I think this is the final touch for me, the thing that keeps me scarfing down this focaccia. It’s the contrast in texture, the balancing of rich flavors.

Suggested Baking Timeline

(for a 70 F home)

11 AM (Day 1)

+Start focaccia dough

5 PM (Day 1)

+Refrigerate focaccia dough

10 AM (Day 2)

+Focaccia dough to counter for final proof

4:30 PM (Day 2)

+Bake focaccia

5 PM (Day 2)

+Add sour cream and cheddar cheese, melt in oven

+Enjoy!

Bacon Focaccia

Recipe by Caitlin VincentCourse: Lunch, DinnerDifficulty: Beginner

Focaccia Prep

minutes

Resting Time

hours

Baking Time

minutes

Yield

servings

Ingredients

Focaccia Dough
500 g Hayden’s Flour Mill Artisan Bread Flour
425 g water (use 400 g for other white flours, such as King Arthur)
75 g active starter (use 100 g for other white flours, such as King Arthur)
10 g salt
Topping
Bacon grease, warmed (for drizzling)
12 oz (340 g) bacon, cooked and chopped
Ranch seasoning, to taste
8 oz (226 g) sour cream
4 oz/1 cup/115 g cheddar cheese, shredded or sliced
Other Ingredients
Bacon grease, solidified (for greasing the baking dish)

Directions

Mix together the flour, water, starter, and salt. Mix for five minutes, until no dry bits of flour remain and gluten development has been initiated. Cover the dough with a lid, damp towel, or plastic cling wrap and let it rest for 30-60 minutes.
Ferment and strengthen the dough: Thirty to sixty minutes after mixing, begin four sets of folds, spaced thirty to sixty minutes apart. Use the shorter time for warmer room temperatures, and the longer time for cooler room temperatures. I prefer coil folds for this bread, as it is a fairly wet dough.
- To coil fold the dough: Pull the dough up from the middle, stretching up as far as it will go. Then, fold the dough under itself in each cardinal direction before covering the dough and allowing it to rest once more.
Bulk fermentation: Allow the dough to rest until it has increased in volume by about 50% and is showing nice bubbles on top. This is about six hours in total at a room temperature of approximately 70-72 F.
Shape: Generously grease a 9X13 baking dish with bacon grease and dump the proofed dough into it. If needed, stretch the dough out slightly to mostly fill the container.
At this point, you can refrigerate the dough until the next day or let it rest once more until it is finished proofing.
Final proof: The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it rest until it is very puffy, bubbly, and filling up the pan. The dough should approximately double in size, 5-8 hours at 70 F. If you did not place your dough in the refrigerator, this will only take 3-6 more hours.
Preheat your oven to 450 F.
Meanwhile, cook and chop the bacon, reserving the bacon grease for drizzling on top of the focaccia dough (make sure it has cooled down first).
Drizzle warm bacon grease all over the top of the focaccia bread. Sprinkle everything generously with ranch seasoning, then spread the cooked and chopped bacon all over. Dimple everything in.
Bake the focaccia for 30 minutes. The internal temperature should reach 200 F (93 C).
Poke holes all over the focaccia and pipe sour cream into them. You can use a piping bag or a ziploc bag with a small hole cut out of the corner to do this. Top the focaccia with cheddar cheese.
Place back in the oven and bake 5-8 minutes more, until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
Cool for 15 minutes before slicing.
Enjoy!