Focaccia barese — the recipe
Puglia's daily bread and a beach-town icon: focaccia barese is a thick, dimpled, olive-oil-soaked focaccia studded with halved cherry tomatoes and olives, pressed in so they roast into the soft, oily crumb. Bari bakes it in the morning and eats it warm by noon — no cheese, no fuss, just tomatoes, brine and good oil.
This is a pan recipe, so everything below is weighed for the pan and scales with its area — the table covers the common sizes. The dough is the wet, oil-rich focaccia; the Focaccia preset weighs it for whatever tin you own.
What goes on top
Per pizza, on the default 30 × 22 cm pan — in layering order:
halved, pressed cut-side up into the dimples
a generous pinch over the top
Puglia-generous — in the dimples and over everything
Different pan? Dough and toppings scale together with the pan’s area — the common sizes:
| Pan | Dough | Cherry tomatoes | Black olives | Dried oregano | Extra-virgin olive oil |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 × 22 cm | 429 g | 180 g | 13 olives | 2 g | 30 g |
| 33 × 23 cm · 13 × 9 in | 493 g | 205 g | 15 olives | 2 g | 35 g |
| 35 × 25 cm | 569 g | 240 g | 18 olives | 3 g | 40 g |
| 33 × 33 cm | 708 g | 295 g | 22 olives | 3 g | 50 g |
| 40 × 30 cm | 780 g | 325 g | 24 olives | 4 g | 55 g |
| 46 × 33 cm · 18 × 13 in | 987 g | 415 g | 31 olives | 5 g | 70 g |
The dough
Focaccia barese is built on Focaccia dough. Dimpled, olive-oil-soaked pan bread. Genovese spirit. For 4 pans:
| Ingredient | Baker's % | For 4 pizzas |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 920 g |
| Water | 80% | 736 g |
| Salt | 2.2% | 20 g |
| Olive oil | 4% | 37 g |
| Yeast | 0.23% | 2.1 g |
The yeast is weighed for an example 8 h rise at 21°C — your kitchen disagrees, and that’s the point: set your real schedule in the calculator and it reweighs the pinch.
How it’s done
- Make the dough: 4 pans of Focaccia dough — the calculator weighs everything for your pan size.
- Stretch the dough into the oiled pan and let it relax into the corners.
- Top with 180 g cherry tomatoes (halved, pressed cut-side up into the dimples).
- Top with 13 black olives (whole, pitted, pushed in among the tomatoes).
- Top with 2 g dried oregano (a generous pinch over the top).
- Top with 30 g extra-virgin olive oil (Puglia-generous — in the dimples and over everything).
- Bake at 220 °C / 428 °F — no steel or stone needed: the pan is the baking surface; set it low-to-middle in the oven.
Questions from the counter
What's the difference between focaccia barese and Genoa's focaccia?
Both are thick, dimpled and drenched in olive oil, but the dress differs. Genoa's focaccia (focaccia genovese) is plain — oil and coarse salt, sometimes rosemary — and eaten almost as a bread. The barese is topped: halved cherry tomatoes and olives pressed into the dough before baking, so it eats closer to a tomato pie. Same Ligurian-to-Puglian family, opposite ends of dressed-up.
Do the cherry tomatoes go on raw?
Raw and halved, pressed cut-side up into the dimples before the bake — the oven does the cooking. They collapse into sweet-tart jammy pockets and their juices season the oily crumb around them. Don't pre-cook them, and don't slice them thin; the half-tomato holds its shape and its burst of liquid where a slice would just dry out.
Should there be potato in the dough?
Traditionally, yes — a little boiled, riced potato in the dough is the Bari secret, keeping the crumb pillowy and moist for longer. The calculator weighs a straight flour-and-water focaccia, which makes an excellent barese on its own; if you want the authentic touch, swap roughly a tenth of the flour weight for cooked riced potato and expect a slightly softer, wetter dough.
Get the dough
The Focaccia preset weighs the pan and writes the schedule — mix, rise, pan, dimple, bake.
The clock is a suggestion. The dough is the boss. In bocca al lupo!
Impasto is a free pizza dough calculator for Neapolitan, New York, Roman, Sicilian, Detroit, thin crust and focaccia doughs — flour, water, salt and yeast weighed in baker's percentages, with the fermentation schedule written for you.