Focaccia Lab261 recipes

Focaccia Lab

Focaccia: what 261 recipes agree on

The olive-oil pan bread: water, oil, salt and yeast per 100 g of flour.

261 recipes from 107 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical pan, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.

Recipes

261

from 107 sites

Typical flour

500 g

about 4 cups

Oven

425°F

220°C · median of 226

Bake time

24 min

most 20 to 30 min

The typical pan of focaccia

The median of all 261 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 500 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.

Typical focaccia recipe in grams, with the range most recipes use
IngredientGrams
FlourThe scale for everything else500 gabout 4 cups
WaterMost recipes use 315 to 405 g360 gabout 1 1/2 cups
Olive oilMost recipes use 28 to 80 g50 gabout 1/4 cup
SaltMost recipes use 8 to 12 g10 g
YeastMost recipes use 3.5 to 8 g6 g
Sugar49% use none; the rest mostly 6 to 16 g0.5 g

Bake425°F (220°C) for about 24 minutes.

Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.

Every recipe, ingredient by ingredient

Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.

  1. Water

    median 72% · most 63 to 81%

    Focaccia is among the wettest doughs; high water gives the airy, bubbly crumb.

    0%50%100%150%
    Each dot is up to 5 recipes.

    range 50 to 111%

  2. Olive oil

    median 10% · most 5.5 to 16%

    Oil in the dough, not counting the pan and the top: it makes the crumb tender and rich.

    0%10%20%30%
    Each dot is up to 3 recipes.

    range 2 to 30%

  3. Salt

    median 2% · most 1.6 to 2.3%

    Around 2%, before the flaky salt on top.

    0%1%2%3%4%
    Each dot is up to 7 recipes.

    range 1 to 3.5%

  4. Yeast

    median 1.2% · most 0.7 to 1.6%

    Overnight recipes use a pinch of yeast; same-day versions use more.

    0%1%2%3%4%
    Each dot is up to 4 recipes.

    range 0 to 3% · 4% use none

  5. Sugar

    median 0.1% · 49% use none

    Usually none, sometimes a little honey.

    0%2%4%6%8%10%
    Each dot is up to 15 recipes.

    range 0 to 8% · those that use some, mostly 1.2 to 3.2%

Where recipes disagree

Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.

  • Sugar. 49% of recipes use no sugar, and the rest disagree too: the middle half of them add 1.2 to 3.2% of the flour weight.
  • Olive oil. The middle half of recipes use 5.5 to 16% of the flour weight in olive oil, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 2.9 times as much as one at the 25th.

Recipes agree most on water and salt: water 63 to 81%, salt 1.6 to 2.3% for the middle half.

Around the world

257 of the recipes come in 6 languages with enough of each to compare: English 113, Italian 46, French 37, German 32, Dutch 18, Portuguese 11.

  • French recipes use 18% less water than English ones (64% against 79% of the flour weight).
  • Italian recipes use 18% less water than English ones (65% against 79% of the flour weight), 40% less olive oil (7.9% against 13%) and 42% less yeast (0.8% against 1.4%).
Every language, ingredient by ingredient →

What the words in titles mean

English recipes whose titles use a word, against the ones that do not. What recipe writers do when they pick the word, not proof that it makes the texture.

Recipes called “easy” (15) or “no-knead” (10) use about the same amounts as the rest on every ingredient measured here.

“sourdough”

10 recipes vs 103

Recipes with “sourdough” in the title: most use no yeast (100% vs 0%).

“sourdough” (10)the rest (103)middle half of all

  • Yeast · share using anyrecipes with sourdough in the title 0% vs the rest 99%

The most-reviewed recipes

43 focaccia recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 218, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:

On no ingredient do the most-reviewed recipes differ from the rest by more than chance would explain.

50+ ratings (43)the rest (218)middle half of all

  • Waterthe most-reviewed recipes 71% vs the rest 73%

  • Olive oilthe most-reviewed recipes 11% vs the rest 10%

  • Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 2.1% vs the rest 2%

  • Yeastthe most-reviewed recipes 1.2% vs the rest 1.2%

  • Sugarthe most-reviewed recipes 0.1% vs the rest 0.05%

Most reviewed

  1. The Best, Easiest Focaccia Bread Recipe · alexandracooks.com5.0 from 2,604 ratings
  2. Focaccia au thermomix · cookomix.com · French4.9 from 690 ratings
  3. Simple Sourdough Focaccia · alexandracooks.com4.9 from 614 ratings
  4. Zelfgemaakte focaccia – Recept · rutgerbakt.nl · Dutch4.0 from 574 ratings
  5. Focaccia · rasamalaysia.com4.5 from 490 ratings

Oven temperature and time

226 of 261 recipes state an oven temperature, and 32% of those bake at 400°F (205°C). The middle half bake at 400 to 450°F. The other 35 do not say.

  • 400°F73 recipes
  • 425°F55 recipes
  • 450°F33 recipes
  • 350°F22 recipes
  • 475°F22 recipes
  • 375°F14 recipes

245 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 24 minutes and the middle half bake 20 to 30 minutes.

Temperature and time together

The single most common pairing is 400°F for 20 to 30 minutes, with 35 of the 220 recipes that state both.

Rows: oven °F (°C in gray), every 25°F. Columns: minutes, 10 a column, from the start of each; the middle of a stated range counts. Darker: more recipes, up to 35 in one cell. Outlined: the median, 425°F for 24 minutes. 220 recipes state both. The edge rows and columns also hold the few recipes beyond them.

Recipes to start with

Closest to the typical pan

Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.

Most water

Least water

All 261 focaccia recipes →

Go deeper

Top sources

  • 10chefsimon.com
  • 10soniaperonaci.it
  • 9ricettedalmondo.it
  • 8bettybossi.ch
  • 8chainbaker.com
  • 8ptitchef.com
  • 7marcelpaa.com
  • 7misya.info
  • 7receiteria.com.br
  • 7tasteofhome.com
  • 6cucchiaio.it
  • 6gutekueche.at

In 7 languages: English 113, Italian 46, French 37, German 32, Dutch 18, Portuguese 11, Spanish 4. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 107 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.

How the numbers are made

Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.

84% of the 2,358 ingredient lines got a weight. 46% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.

A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 499 were left out: 339 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (water 127, olive oil 95, salt 72, yeast 27, sugar 18), 69 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 63 too many lines without an amount, 19 with a title that names a different dish, 4 with an ingredient in amounts that could not be weighed, 4 duplicates of other pages, and 1 a listing page, not a recipe page.

Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.