Swap Your Baking Pan For An Easier Way To Serve Focaccia Bread

Amongst home bakers, focaccia is a fan favorite for its blank canvas of moist, airy dough — perfect for covering with your favorite veggies and smothering in marinara sauce. Originally conceived in the city of Genoa, Italy — hence where the name focaccia alla Genovese comes from – traditional focaccia is an unleavened bread that focuses primarily on the simple ingredients. There is some debate over how far back the creation of focaccia goes, with some claiming it dates back to the beginning of the first millennium. But one thing is certain: There have been many modern variations and adaptations to the historic recipe, most notably adding brewers yeast to leaven the dough.

One recent tweak to the recipe that we're majorly digging is baking your focaccia bread in a cupcake tin. By baking the rumored predecessor to pizza dough in a cupcake pan, you'll end up with bite-sized servings of focaccia, including its signature crispy crust and steamy-soft interior. Cooking individual pieces makes serving and sharing focaccia a lot easier when you're preparing it for dinner parties or big groups. Heads up, you'll maybe want to double the recipe, because it's hard to stop at just one focaccia bite.

Swapping out baking pans for muffin tins to make your grab-and-go focaccia is actually quite simple. You start by making focaccia dough the way you typically would. If you don't have a favorite recipe, we recommend using our foolproof focaccia recipe, which calls for olive oil, flour, salt, and yeast.

After the dough has been refrigerated for 12-48 hours, you'll want to grab and grease your cupcake pan with olive oil. Next, divide your focaccia dough into even pieces. The goal is to do this gently enough so that you don't let too many air bubbles escape from the dough that you so delicately folded. Drop the dough into each greased cup and let it rise for thirty minutes to an hour until the dough looks fluffy and tall — like it's ready to escape the tin. 

Next, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven is preheating, your dough is ready to get oiled up. Drizzle an ample amount of olive oil over each top, and then add those signature focaccia dimples by gently pressing your oiled fingers into the tops of the dough. Next, sprinkle your dimpled tops with pepper, flaked salt, and any favorite toppings (we like roasted garlic, fresh rosemary, and cherry tomatoes). When the oven is heated to the right temperature, pop your muffin tin in and bake for 12-15 minutes, until you get that beautiful golden brown crust. This is your final warning, these focaccia bites go quickly, so make extras.