Whole Wheat Rosemary-Garlic Focaccia Bread

I love bread. I don't think anything makes a house smell better than fresh baked bread. I also enjoy "fancy" bread, the kind you would buy in a bakery something like a nice french baguette. The problem with these breads is that they are expensive and most of them are made with refined white flour. White flour is highly processed and has had the bran removed from the grain. Whole wheat flour is significantly higher in fiber and vitamins than white flour and it also has a lower glycemic index. This index is determined by how fast a food causes your blood sugar to rise after eating it. White flour has a higher GI, this results in a blood sugar spike and than crash after it wears off. Wheat flour has a lower GI so food is absorbed slower which helps prevent the spike and then crash. It also helps make the food you eat more filling; it takes less food to fill you up and it helps keep you feeling full for longer. 

Focaccia is an Italian bread that is flat and oven-baked. It can be eaten by itself, made into a sandwich, or even used as a pizza crust. I served ours with minestrone soup. It is very versatile and can be easily customized to have all sorts of different flavors added in. I decided to go with rosemary and garlic. 

Baking homemade bread can take awhile; it is sadly not a 10 minute process. However, even though it takes several hours to make most of that time the bread is just hanging out and rising while you go about your day. This bread needs to rise twice; one of the times it was rising I ran to grocery store. Just because from start to finish it may take 3 hours it doesn't mean you have to spend that entire time with the bread. I think the entire amount of time I actually spent working with the bread was maybe 20 minutes. It's just important to note the complete length of time the bread takes because if you want to have this with dinner you can't just whip it up as you're making dinner it does require some planning ahead. That being said it is totally worth it! 

Start by dissolving 1 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water. The warm part is important (105-115 degrees), it should be warm to the touch but so hot it burns. If the water is too cold it will not activate the yeast; if it is too hot it will kill the yeast. Once it is dissolved add in 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (or honey if you try to stay away from refined sugars). Let it stand for 5 minutes. The yeast will eat the sugar and foam; this is means the yeast is activated yay!

While the yeast is doing its thing lets saute the garlic. Finely mince 2 cloves of garlic, if you are not a fan of garlic you could use onions instead or if you love both use both! You could also skip this step and add in chopped olives instead. It's all up to you and how you want your bread to taste. 





Heat 3 Tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and then add the garlic to it. Saute the garlic until it is a light and toasty brown, about 3 minutes or so. Once it is done pour the olive oil and the garlic into a separate little bowl. You want to do this because the pan is still hot and will continue to cook the garlic even if you remove it from the stove and it could end up burning your garlic.

Once the yeast has foamed add in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1 1/4 cup of warm water. 

 Place 2 cups of whole wheat flour into a mixing bowl and then pour in the water and yeast mixture. This can be done in a standing mixer with a dough hook or it can be done by hand. Today, I decided to do it by hand quite frankly because I didn't even think about using my mixer until I had already started stirring the dough by hand. You want to stir the dough until it is all mixed together and then slowly add in another 1 - 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour until it turns into a soft dough. You want it to be soft and pliable without being dry. 

Place the dough on a floured surface and kneed for about 5-6 minutes. Then flatten the dough out and pour the olive oil and garlic onto it along with 1 teaspoon of rosemary. If you wanted to go with olives instead of garlic you would add them here, or you could do garlic and olives. You can also change up the spices as well. If you are making this to use as a pizza crust you could mix in oregano and basil. Chopped sun dried tomatoes and oregano would be really good in this bread as well. Once you have all your extra goodies on the dough kneed it for another minute or so, you want to make sure they get incorporated all throughout the dough. 

Form the dough into a ball and then place in a bowl that has been lightly greased. Turn the dough over once so the top and bottom are both greased. This is to prevent the dough from sticking to anything. Cover the bowl with either a clean towel or plastic wrap and let it rest someone warm away from drafts for about 40 minutes. 

The dough should have doubled in size. Punch it down in the bowl and then place back on the floured surfaced. Cut the dough in half and flatten it out a little bit. And let it sit for about 5 minutes. Place each half of dough onto a greased baking sheet and stretch in out until it is a circle 10 inches across. 


Cover the dough again and let it rise for another 40 minutes. When it is done use about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil to brush the tops of the bread and then sprinkle with another 1 teaspoon of rosemary (or whatever spices you used) and a little bit of salt. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Once it is done immediately transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Cost Break Down!! 

A 4 oz jar of yeast costs $3.49, There are 13.32 Tablespoons in 4 oz of yeast and 1 1/2 teaspoons is equal to 1/2 a Tablespoon so 1 1/2 teaspoon would cost about $0.13. The half of teaspoon of sugar and half of teaspoon of salt I used together don't even cost a penny. 2 cloves of garlic cost me about $0.04. All together I used 6 Tablespoons of olive oil which costs me $0.48. A 5 lb. of flour cost me $2.99, which is $0.56 a cup, so the 3 1/2 cups I used cost me $1.96. I bought a .62 oz jar of dried rosemary for $1.62. I'm not positive on how to calculate weight of rosemary to teaspoons because I don't own a kitchen scale but I'm going to estimate and say I used a 1/4 of the jar to make it easy although I would bet it was less than that. I would estimate the rosemary cost me $0.40. 

All together I made 2 loaves of whole wheat focaccia bread for $3.00. At a bakery you will pay more than that for just 1 loaf!