Foccacia with olives
There are few better smells than olive focaccia coming out of the oven on a quiet morning. It is forgiving, endlessly adaptable bread — but a handful of details, above all the oil and how you treat the olives, separate a great one from a merely nice one.
Focaccia is the friendliest of breads: a wet, oil-rich dough, dimpled with your fingers, drenched in good olive oil and baked until the top is golden and the bottom faintly fried. Studded with olives it becomes a meal in itself, and it needs nothing more than to be eaten warm. It is also a brilliant showcase for two of the Mediterranean’s staples — olive oil and olives — which means the quality of those two things is most of the battle.
The oil is not a detail — it is the flavour
In most bread, oil is incidental. In focaccia it is a headline ingredient: it goes into the dough, gets pooled into the dimples before baking, and is often brushed on warm at the end. That means you taste it, so use an oil you would happily eat raw. A grassy, peppery extra virgin gives focaccia its savoury lift; a dull, tired oil leaves it flat and greasy. This is not the place for cheap frying oil — the bread is essentially a delivery system for good olive oil.
How to treat the olives
Two rules save a lot of grief. First, press the olives into the dough after the final rise, not before — add them too early and they sink, tear the crumb and stop the bread rising evenly. Push them into the dimples just before it goes in the oven. Second, use whole or torn olives, not finely chopped, and pit them (or warn whoever is eating). Good, meaty olives — Kalamata, a ripe black, a firm green — hold their shape and their juice; a handful of marinated olives, oil and all, is often all the seasoning the dough needs.
Dimples, salt and patience
The dimples are not decoration. Pressing your fingertips deep into the risen dough creates little wells that trap olive oil and flaky salt, giving you those characteristic pools of savoury richness. Be generous with the oil in them and finish with coarse or flaky salt just before baking. Beyond that, focaccia rewards a slow, cool rise for flavour and an honestly hot oven for a crisp base. A rich olive focaccia needs nothing else — it is at its very best torn apart plain, still warm from the tin.
| Choice | Do | Don’t |
|---|---|---|
| When to add olives | After the final rise | Into the raw dough early |
| Olive size | Whole or torn | Finely chopped to mush |
| Which oil | Good extra virgin | Cheap refined frying oil |
| Salt | Coarse/flaky, before baking | Fine salt lost in the crumb |
| Star ingredients | Olive oil + olives |
|---|---|
| Oil goes | In the dough, in the dimples, on top |
| Add olives | After the final rise |
| Olive prep | Whole or torn, pitted |
| Finish | Flaky salt; optional rosemary |
| Best eaten | Warm, plain, torn by hand |
For a better focaccia
- Use an extra virgin you’d eat raw — you will taste it.
- Press olives in after the rise, not into the raw dough.
- Keep olives whole or torn, and pitted, so they hold juice and shape.
- Be generous with oil and flaky salt in the dimples before baking.
Olive focaccia: common questions
What olive oil should I use for focaccia?
A good extra virgin you would happily eat raw. Oil is a headline flavour in focaccia — in the dough, the dimples and brushed on top — so a grassy, peppery oil lifts it and a dull one flattens it.
When do I add the olives?
After the final rise, pressing them into the dimples just before baking. Added too early they sink, tear the crumb and stop the bread rising evenly.
Should the olives be pitted?
Yes, unless you warn everyone. Keep them whole or torn rather than finely chopped so they hold their shape and juice through baking.
Which olives work best?
Meaty, flavourful ones — Kalamata, a ripe black or a firm green. A handful of marinated olives, with a little of their oil, often seasons the dough beautifully.
Why dimple focaccia?
The dimples trap pools of olive oil and flaky salt, creating the bread’s characteristic rich, savoury pockets and its dappled top. They are function, not just looks.
Focaccia is nearly impossible to ruin, which is exactly why people underuse the two levers that make it superb. First, the oil: this is bread built around olive oil, so a tired supermarket oil gives you tired bread. Spend where it counts and use something you would dip raw. Second, the olives: press them in after the rise, keep them whole, and let a little of their marinade season the dough. Do those two things and a simple flatbread becomes the best thing on the table — and your kitchen smells like a Ligurian bakery for an afternoon.
Drawn from Italian home baking and focaccia tradition.