About This Recipe

This recipe is the first in a series of focaccia recipes that are made to be an entire meal in one. My goal: to empower you to make homemade bread into enjoyable meals for your family. This recipe in particular was inspired by King’s Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Sliders. I use King’s special butter sauce in place of olive oil and top this focaccia with a hearty amount of ham steak and freshly-grated Swiss cheese. The result: an incredibly flavorful mesh between a ham and cheese sandwich and a buttery focaccia.

How to make This focaccia

Original Focaccia Recipe and Video

To watch how to make focaccia step-by-step, see the video below. This series will focus on variations in the focaccia sauce, toppings, and ways to enjoy, meaning I will not be detailing how to make the focaccia base in each post. To read my full post on focaccia, click here.

Hayden Flour Mills Artisan Bread Flour

For this recipe, I chose to use Hayden Flour Mills Artisan Bread Flour over my usual King Arthur Bread Flour. I love that this flour is fresh, high quality, and full of flavor. I’ve been eager to experiment with and dive into a world of better-for-you and better-tasting sourdough baked goods.

While these attributes are amazing, you can see from my photos that I am still learning to work with the flour and haven’t quite nailed the process for best results and crumb. Flour, just like other factors, can have a large impact the outcome of your bread. Fresh flour contains more enzymatic activity – which just means the dough ferments faster. The additional bran and germ in this flour also absorb more moisture, though (despite this) the flour itself is incredibly extensible. I will be posting a video soon detailing my exact process for this flour once I get a better feel for it.

Butter Sauce

In place of olive oil, I’ve used the classic butter sauce from the original King’s Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Slider recipe. This sauce is made of melted butter, dijon mustard, onion powder, poppy seeds, and Worcestershire sauce. I spread this flavorful sauce all over the bottom of the pan (not the sides!) and all over the focaccia dough before I leave it for the final rise. (Spreading it on the sides may result in burning in the oven). This adds mountains of flavor that absorbs right into the focaccia dough as it bakes.

Ham

Use enough ham to make a meal out of the dish, but not so much that it is overpowering or that it weighs down the focaccia in the oven. I use one boneless ham steak, which weighs between .75 to .9 pounds.

Swiss

While (in my opinion) Swiss cheese is the perfect compliment to the flavors in this dish, you can use any cheese you like. After the focaccia has baked for twenty-five minutes (it should be cooked through and starting to brown), the cheese can be added and the focaccia baked again until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Adding the cheese in the beginning will result in a very dark, maybe even burnt, cheese and crunchy texture.

Overall Flavor Profile

While this dish may be inspired by King’s Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Sliders, the flavor profile is not quite the same. Hawaiian rolls are enriched with butter, eggs and sugar – which creates a sweet, rich, fluffy roll. Focaccia is simple: flour, water, salt, sourdough starter. Focaccia is just bread, not sweet, rich, extra fluffy bread. Because I haven’t used enriched bread, there isn’t actually any hint of sweet in this dish. The butter sauce soaks into the dough as it bakes and packs everything with flavor, while the ham and Swiss create the meal by adding protein to make this dish more filling.

Hawaiian Focaccia

Recipe by Caitlin VincentCourse: Lunch, DinnerDifficulty: Beginner

Prep time

minutes

Resting Time

hours

Baking Time

minutes

Yield

loaf

Ingredients

For the focaccia dough
500 g bread flour (4 cups; I used Hayden Flour Mills Artisan Bread Flour in this recipe)
400 g water (1 ⅔ cups)
100 g active starter (½ cup)
10 g salt (1 ½ tsp)
For the butter sauce
1 stick (½ cup; 113 g) melted butter
1 ½ tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp poppy seeds
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
For topping the focaccia
1 boneless ham steak (.75-1 lb)
4 oz (115 g) Swiss cheese, shredded

Directions

Make the focaccia dough
Mix together the flour, water, starter, and salt in a bowl for about five minutes. The flour should be fully incorporated and gluten development should be initiated. Cover the dough with a lid, damp towel, or plastic cling wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Thirty minutes after mixing, begin four sets of folds, spaced thirty minutes apart. 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.
After folds are complete, allow the dough to rest until it has increased in volume by about 50% (about 3 more hours at 70 F).
Make the butter sauce
Whisk together all ingredients for the butter sauce in a small bowl.
Shape and proof the focaccia
Generously brush the butter sauce all over the bottom (not the sides!) of a 9X13 baking dish. I love my 9X13 USA pan for this, as I've found it is the only pan to which the focaccia does not cling during baking. Dump the proofed dough into the pan, stretching to mostly fill the container.
Brush the remaining melted butter sauce all over the top of the focaccia.
At this point, you can refrigerate the dough until the next day or let it rest once more until it is finished proofing.
For refrigerated dough: The next morning, 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, 5-7 hours at 70 F.
For room temperature dough: After shaping, let the dough rest again until it is very puffy, bubbly, and filling up the pan. The dough should approximately double in size, 4-5 hours at 70 F.
Top and Bake the focaccia
Preheat an oven to 450 F.
Add all of the diced ham steak to the top of the focaccia, dimpling all over.
NOTE: At this point, if you notice large bubbles coming to the surface and popping, this is a sign that the dough is either over-proofed or that it needed more mixing time in the beginning. The crumb will be denser, but the texture may still be light. You want to feel a very airy dough with a few bubbles that come to the surface (and do not pop) during dimpling.
Bake the focaccia for 25-30 minutes. The focaccia should be baked through and brown, and the ham should be perfectly roasted and warm.
Pull the focaccia out of the oven and top all over with Swiss cheese.
Bake about five minutes more, until the cheese is melted, bubbly, and browned to your liking.
Cool the focaccia for 15-20 minutes before slicing. Enjoy!