Sourdough cheddar and garlic focaccia

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out! I baked it on the lowest rack, but I may move it up after 20 min to brown the top more without burning the bottom. I incorporated minced garlic and shredded cheddar during the stretch and fold process, making sure the toppings are fully encased by the dough. After incorporating the toppings, I started using coil folds instead.

Recipe:
500g white bread flour
420g water
100g overripe starter
5g/1tsp honey
15g/1tbsp oil from sun dried tomato bottle
13g salt

Mix all ingredients except flour together in a bowl, then add the flour and mix everything together. Let the dough sit for an hour then do stretch and folds until the dough can’t stretch anymore without ripping. Let sit another hour, then do stretch and folds incorporating shredded cheddar and garlic. After an hour, do coil folds, wait another hour, more coil folds. Let sit and bulk ferment until super poofy and jiggly with bubbles on top. I like to push the bulk ferment since overfermenting is good with focaccia.

Prepare 9” x 13” baking tray by rubbing a bit of olive oil to help parchment paper stick to the tray. Drizzle some oil all around the bottom and sides of the partchment part as well, then dump the dough in. Stretch the dough to the corners as best as possible, if it doesn’t reach let it rest for 20 min then come back and stretch the dough until it covers the entire tray. Drizzle and rub oil on top to prevent sticking, then cover with aluminum foil (I like to tent it upwards a bit to prevent any possibility of it touching the sticky dough). Let proof on counter for 1.5 hours. Put into fridge and cold proof over night.

Preheat oven to 430F, take out the dough and rest on top of oven to bring temp up. Once the dough is warm enough to jiggle, drizzle some oil, coat your fingers in it, and dimple. I added dried rosemary to the oil pools since it tends to burn if not covered in oil. I baked for 22 min then took it out, but next time I may move it to a higher baking rack and let it bake for a bit longer to brown the top more. Take out, drizzle with olive oil and flakey sea salt, let cool on a rack for 20 min then enjoy! I particularly like it with balsamic vinegar.