SourTube: Foolproof Sourdough Focaccia (feat. Alexandra's Kitchen)

📺 SourTube pick: This is a curated video — we didn't make it, we just love it and think you will too. All credit belongs to the creator below. Watch it, learn from it, then go show them some love.

Today's pick: Amazing and Simple Sourdough Focaccia

Creator: Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen
Watch on YouTube: Amazing and Simple Sourdough Focaccia
More from Alexandra: alexandracooks.com and her cookbooks Bread Toast Crumbs and Pizza Night

If the embed doesn't load, watch it directly on YouTube here.

Why we picked this one

Focaccia is the bake I wish someone had handed me on day one. No shaping anxiety. No scoring designs to butcher. No wrestling a screaming-hot dutch oven. You mix, you wait, you poke it with your fingers like it owes you money, and out comes a golden, bubbly, olive-oil-drenched masterpiece. If sourdough loaves intimidate you, focaccia is your back door into the club — and this is the video that walks you through it.

Alexandra Stafford is a cookbook author (not a hype channel), and her whole thing is simple on purpose. Everything goes into one bowl at once — water, salt, starter, flour. That's it. No autolyse, no preferment, no spreadsheet of stages. In about five minutes of video she shows you the entire process with timestamps, so you can rewatch just the dimpling part seventeen times like I did.

Here's the part that made me grin: Alexandra is openly a "just buy the starter" person. She tells her readers to skip the two-week science experiment and start baking with a starter they can trust. A woman after my own heart. 🐿️

What you'll learn in 5 minutes

• The mix-everything-at-once method: water, salt, starter, flour, all in one bowl, stirred with a spoon. This is sourdough with the training wheels ON — and it still comes out spectacular.
• How to read bulk fermentation: Alexandra ferments in a straight-sided vessel so you can actually SEE the dough grow. No more guessing whether it's "doubled." Measure it. Genius, and free.
• The dimple: the most satisfying 30 seconds in all of baking. Oiled fingers, press all the way down, and those little craters are what hold the olive oil and flaky salt. Therapy you can eat.

Our two cents to go with it

Two things worth knowing before you press play:

1. Don't be shy with the olive oil. The pan gets a generous slick and the top gets drizzled like you mean it. That oil is what fries the bottom into a crispy, golden crust while the inside stays pillowy. Skimp on it and you'll wonder why yours didn't get that restaurant crunch. The recipe quantities exist for a reason.

2. Cold-proof it and bake on YOUR schedule. Once the dough is in the pan, the fridge is your pause button — it slows everything down and deepens the flavor overnight. And if watching this gets you itching to bake but your starter is sluggish, unpredictable, or still "almost ready" — that's literally why our dehydrated starter exists. Rehydrate it once, and you've got a vigorous starter ready when YOU are. Meet your new baking partner here 🐿️

Loved this video? Go tell Alexandra — like and subscribe on YouTube so she keeps making them.

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