Sourdough Spider-Web Focaccia (Halloween)

← All Recipes Sourdough spider-web focaccia in a baking tin with black-olive spiders and a crème fraîche web, beside small pumpkins
EasyOvernight, about 40 min hands-onServes 820 × 30 cm tin

A Halloween centrepiece that is really just a very good sourdough focaccia in costume: a soft, bubbly, olive-oil crumb, a thin tomato and garlic glaze, black-olive spiders that roast in the oven, and a web of crème fraîche piped over the top once it has cooled a little. Mix the dough the evening before and it does most of the work while you sleep.

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 100 g active sourdough starter, at its peak
  • 400 g warm water (about 27°C / 80°F)
  • 500 g strong white bread flour
  • 10 g fine sea salt
  • 40 ml extra virgin olive oil, plus 30 ml for the tin

For the topping

  • 2 tbsp tomato purée
  • 1 garlic clove, finely grated
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 12 large pitted black olives (6 for spider bodies, 6 sliced into thin strips for legs)
  • A pinch of flaky sea salt

For the web

  • 100 g crème fraîche or thick Greek yoghurt
  • 1 tsp lemon juice

Contains: wheat (gluten), milk.

Method

  1. Mix (evening). Whisk the starter into the water until milky. Add the flour and mix until there is no dry flour left. Cover and rest 30 minutes, then add the salt and 40 ml oil and squeeze them through the dough until it comes back together.
  2. Fold. Four sets of stretch and folds, 30 minutes apart. The dough will go from shaggy to smooth and stretchy.
  3. Bulk ferment. Cover and leave at room temperature until risen by about half and bubbly at the edges, then refrigerate overnight (or leave it on the side 4–6 hours at 22–24°C if you are baking the same day).
  4. Pan. Pour 30 ml oil into a 20 × 30 cm tin. Tip the dough in, turn it once to coat, and leave 30 minutes. Gently stretch it towards the corners; if it springs back, wait 15 minutes and try again.
  5. Prove. Cover and leave somewhere warm for 2–3 hours, until puffy, jiggly and full of bubbles.
  6. Top. Heat the oven to 230°C (210°C fan). Mix the tomato purée, garlic and 2 tbsp oil and spread it lightly over the dough. Oil your fingers and dimple the dough all over, right down to the tin. Halve 6 olives lengthways for the spider bodies and press them in, cut side down, then lay four thin olive strips either side of each body for legs. Sprinkle with flaky salt.
  7. Bake. 22–25 minutes until deep golden and crisp at the edges. Leave in the tin 5 minutes, then lift onto a rack and cool for 15 minutes.
  8. Pipe the web. Loosen the crème fraîche with the lemon juice and spoon it into a freezer bag with a tiny corner snipped off. Pipe 3 or 4 rings around the centre of the focaccia, then drag a cocktail stick from the middle outwards 8 times to pull the rings into a web. Serve warm.
Piping a crème fraîche spider web onto sourdough focaccia and dragging it out with a cocktail stick

Tips

  • Wait before you pipe. On a hot focaccia the crème fraîche melts and the web disappears. Fifteen minutes on a rack is enough.
  • Sharper web: Greek yoghurt, or cream cheese loosened with a splash of milk, holds crisper lines than crème fraîche.
  • Making it with children? Skip the garlic and add halved cherry tomatoes as little pumpkins next to the spiders.
  • No overnight time? Leave the dough at warm room temperature for the whole bulk ferment (usually 4–6 hours) and bake the same day.

New to focaccia? Our everyday sourdough focaccia walks through the dough in more detail, and the bone breadsticks make a good partner on the same table.

Dough Dough San Francisco sourdough starter pack

Bake this with a live starter

Our San Francisco sourdough starter is a live culture held dormant rather than dehydrated — ready to bake with in about two hours.

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