How Long to Bake Focaccia — and How to Tell When It’s Done

Baking time by thickness, not by recipe

Almost every disagreement about focaccia baking time disappears once you stop thinking in recipes and start thinking in thickness. A slab of dough conducts heat from the outside in, so the only thing that really sets the clock is how far the heat has to travel to reach the middle. A 1 cm Genoese focaccia and a 4 cm pan focaccia are not variations on one bake time; they are different bakes.

At 220–230°C (425–450°F), which is the range that suits nearly all focaccia, three broad bands cover most of what you will make. Thin, Genoese-style focaccia at roughly 1–1.5 cm: 12–18 minutes. Standard sheet-pan focaccia at roughly 2–3 cm: 20–25 minutes. Thick pan or Sicilian-style focaccia at 3.5–5 cm: 25–35 minutes. Focaccia di Recco, which is a different animal entirely — two paper-thin sheets around cheese — goes hotter and faster still, often 8–10 minutes at the highest heat your oven offers.

Those bands assume a fully preheated oven and a metal pan. Glass and ceramic conduct heat more slowly and will push you toward the longer end; a dark metal pan or a preheated steel will pull you toward the shorter end and brown the base harder. Our guide to choosing a focaccia pan covers how much difference the vessel really makes, and the oven temperature and rack guide covers where to put it.

One thing worth saying plainly: the time in a recipe, including ours, is an estimate written for someone else’s oven. Treat it as the moment to start checking, not the moment to take the bread out.

The internal temperature that settles it

If you want one number, this is it: focaccia is done when the centre of the crumb reads 96–99°C (205–210°F). Below about 93°C (200°F) the starch has not finished gelatinising and the middle will be dense and slightly gummy no matter how good the top looks. Push past about 100°C (212°F) and you are simply driving off moisture, which costs you the soft crumb that makes focaccia worth baking.

Take the reading in the thickest part of the slab, angling the probe in from the side so the tip sits in the middle of the crumb rather than passing through into the hot pan below. A pan reading will run far higher than the bread and will tell you to stop early. If you hit a large gas bubble the number will spike; move over a centimetre and read again.

This is the single measurement that makes focaccia repeatable, and an instant-read thermometer is the cheapest meaningful upgrade in bread baking — see our notes on thermometers for bread. It also settles the argument in the other direction: if your focaccia reads 99°C and still tastes gummy in the middle, the problem is not the bake. It is almost always underproofing or a dough that was too wet to set, both of which are covered in the gummy centre guide.

What to look for when you have no thermometer

Focaccia gives up more visual information than most breads, because the surface you can see is the surface that matters. Look for deep, uneven gold across the top, darker where the dimples pooled oil and paler on the risen ridges. An evenly pale blond top means it is not there yet; an evenly dark one usually means the top ran ahead of the middle and the heat was too high or the rack too near the top.

Then lift a corner. This is the check most people skip and it is the most informative one. Slide a thin spatula or bench scraper under an edge and tip the slab up: the base should be golden brown, dry, and stiff enough to hold its own weight. A pale, soft, floppy base means the bottom has not set, and the centre almost certainly has not either — put it back, ideally a rack lower. If your bases are habitually pale, the crisp bottom guide diagnoses why.

Sound and feel confirm it. A finished slab sounds hollow-ish when you tap the base with a fingernail, and the top springs back rather than holding a dent. The edges will have pulled very slightly from the sides of the pan. None of these are as reliable as 96–99°C, but together they are enough.

Why pulling it early is the most common mistake

Focaccia browns on top well before it finishes in the middle. The oil on the surface conducts heat efficiently and the sugars in the crust colour fast, so at eighteen minutes a sheet-pan focaccia can look magnificent and still be underbaked by five minutes. Because it looks ready, this is where most home bakes end — and it is the origin of a large share of the "my focaccia is gummy / dense / doughy in the middle" problems we get asked about.

The fix is boring and effective: commit to the thermometer, or commit to lifting the corner. If the top is browning faster than the middle is cooking, that is a heat-distribution problem to solve rather than a reason to stop early — move the pan one rack lower, or lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top for the last five to eight minutes and keep baking. Tenting costs you nothing but a little crust crackle and buys the centre the time it needs.

The opposite error is rarer but real. If you are chasing a very crisp base and keep going well past 100°C internal, the crumb dries and the bread stales noticeably faster the next day. Focaccia is forgiving over a couple of minutes, not over ten.

What changes the time in your oven

Ovens vary more than bakers expect, and a dial that reads 230°C can easily be delivering 205°C or 250°C. An oven thermometer resolves that in a minute and is worth more than any recipe adjustment. Beyond calibration, four things move the clock in practice.

Convection (fan) ovens run effectively hotter and bake faster. Drop the set temperature by about 20°C (25°F) and start checking three to five minutes earlier than the range above; our convection guide covers the trade-offs. A crowded oven slows everything — two pans on two racks bake unevenly and take longer than one. Cold dough straight from the fridge, which is how a lot of overnight and cold-proofed focaccia goes into the oven, adds a few minutes. And very high hydration doughs carry more water to drive off, so they sit at the longer end of their band.

Rotating the pan halfway through is worth doing in almost any oven, because hot spots are near-universal. If one corner is consistently dark and another consistently pale, the uneven browning guide has the fuller diagnosis.

Resting: the part of the bake that happens outside the oven

Focaccia keeps cooking after it leaves the oven. Carry-over heat continues to set the crumb for several minutes, which is one more reason a slab pulled at exactly the right internal temperature is not overdone by the time you eat it.

Get it out of the pan quickly, though. Left sitting in hot metal, the base steams in its own oil and the crispness you just worked for softens within minutes. Lift the slab onto a wire rack so air can reach the bottom. Ten to fifteen minutes on the rack is enough before cutting; cutting straight away releases steam from a crumb that has not finished setting and can leave the cut faces looking wet.

That said, focaccia is genuinely good warm, and waiting an hour for it to reach room temperature is not required the way it is for a sourdough boule. Rest it fifteen minutes, cut it, and eat it. For what to do with the rest of the slab, see our storage guide.