Fluffy Focaccia Pizza With the Bread Machine

Fluffy Focaccia pizza is a soft thick savory brioche pizza where tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and ham are trapped inside the dough. Baked in a deep metal pan, it is cut and served in small squares. It is a traditional recipe from Naples called Pizza Campofranco, the name of the chef who invented it. Perfect for entertaining and very easy to make especially if you have a bread machine.

Jump to:

• Easy to make
• Ingredients
• Making the dough
• Preparing the focaccia for baking
• Serving it
• Top tips
• Toppings for this focaccia
• Pizza recipes you might also like
• 📋 Fluffy Focaccia Pizza

This pizza is thicker and softer than regular pizza because the dough is not made with just flour, water, and yeast, like a regular pizza, but also has butter, milk, and eggs. It is more like a savory brioche.

Easy to make

There is no need to roll the dough flat, the dough is very smooth and soft and is easily laid and spread with your hand into a deep metal pan. It is then covered with the desired ingredients, let to rise again, bake for 30 minutes, and served cut in squares.

Once the ingredients are laid over the dough and the pizza is left to rise for 30 minutes, the dough rises trapping all the ingredients inside, creating a nice soft savory brioche mixed with cheese, basil, and ham.

Ingredients

The ingredients to make the dough are:

• All-purpose flour: if you want to use a good quality flour I would suggest the Caputo brand
• Milk: you can either use low fat or regular
• Butter: the butter should be melted. I like to melt it in the microwave with the milk as the milk is also usually cold from the fridge. If you don't have a microwave you can melt it over a regular stove. Before you add the egg into the mix, make sure they are back to room temperature otherwise the egg will cook in the hot milk
• Egg: I have my own chickens free to walk around the garden so I always have free-range eggs. I do recommend free range not only for the taste but also for animal wellbeing.
• Sugar: the sugar is needed to activate the yeast, but also to make the dough sweet like a brioche.
• Salt: 1.5 tsp
• Dry yeast: I prefer dry yeast to fresh one as I can keep a stock at home and make pizza and bread anytime I want. The fresh yeast should be used within a short time frame and should be kept in the fridge. As yeast is a living bacteria, the fresh yeast easily perishes and as a result, the dough will not rise.

Check the recipe card for measurements.

Making the dough

I usually make this dough with the bread machine, I just pour the ingredients into the machine basket and the dough is ready in 1.5 hours. Once the dough is prepared, the rest of the cooking is very easy, that is why I usually make it as a starter or for a buffet at dinner parties.

If you don't have a bread machine, no problem. You can follow the instructions here: How to make brioche, or bread rolls’ dough without a bread machine.

To make the dough:

1. Mix all the wet ingredients together
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together
3. Load the ingredients into the machine, wet ingredients first, dry ingredients last
4. Set the program for fresh dough (number 10 in the Kenwood). The dough will be ready in 1.5 hours.

Prepare the ingredients for the topping

5. Chop all the ingredients for the topping

Preparing the focaccia for baking

1. Cover a 26X35 cm pan with baking paper, and coat the base and the side with plenty of olive oil.
2. Once the dough is ready put it in the center of the pan and stretch it downwards using your fingers, it is very soft.
3. Fill the top of the dough with fresh tomato sauce, grated mozzarella, and shredded ham. Drizzle with olive oil and salt.
4. With your fingers, press the ingredients down into the dough so that when it rises the ingredients will be trapped inside the dough, making it moister and locking the flavor in throughout the pizza.
5. The pizza needs to rest for 30 minutes to prove.
6. Once it rises, cook it in a hot oven at 355 F - 180 C for 30 minutes.

Serving it

7. When ready, let it rest for 10 minutes on a cutting board
8. Once cold cut it into squares
9. Transfer into a serving dish

Top tips

• The ingredients should be placed in the bread machine in the exact order as listed above, liquids first.
• When you melt the butter, wait until it cools down before adding the eggs otherwise the egg will slightly cook
• As 5 cups of flour is a large quantity, if you don't remove the dough from the machine right after it is ready, it will keep rising and might overflow outside the bread machine basket.
• You can choose different filling ingredients, see more ideas above.
• The olive oil added on top makes the focaccia, fluffy, moist, and juicy.
• Once cooked, let it cool down for 10 minutes before cutting it and moving it to a serving plate. If you move it too early the slices will break.
• It can be served warm as well as at room temperature

Toppings for this focaccia

During the summer, when tomatoes and basil are in season, I like to top it with cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, ham and basil. During the winter I use my homemade tomato sauce, which I prepare at the end of summer, fresh mozzarella and ham.

You can put any toppings you like, vegetables, meat...just NO PINEAPPLE!!

Personally, I love to top my pizza with different types of cheese and vegetables: caramelized onions, grilled eggplants, zucchini, and artichokes. If you want to know more you can read the article: A List Of Pizza Toppings With Fresh Vegetables. The article refers to regular pizza, but you can use the same toppings for pizza focaccia.

You can also very simply top it with herbs, salt, and olive oil and use it as bread.

Pizza recipes you might also like

For more pizza recipes, check out the category: Pizza

Also check the recipes below:

• Fried Pizza
• Pizza Bianca Romana
• Artichoke Pizza with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Scamorza Cheese
• 10 Pizza with Fresh Vegetables
• Traditional Italian White Pizza With Pesto
• Pissaladiere Nicoise
• Pizzette Mini Pizza Bites
• Pizza with Nutella

If you are making this fluffy pizza focaccia, leave your comment below I would like to hear from you. You can find more delicious ideas if you FOLLOW ME on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram or sign up to my newsletter.