Focaccia di Recco

Focaccia di Recco (focaccia col formaggio) is one of Italy's most extraordinary breads—two impossibly thin, translucent sheets of oil-and-flour dough enclosing a molten filling of crescenza (stracchino) cheese, baked at extreme heat until the surface blisters and chars while the cheese inside becomes a stretchy, bubbling pool. Despite being called 'focaccia,' this bears no resemblance to the thick, dimpled, oil-topped bread associated with the name—it is closer to a filled flatbread or a savoury crêpe, and its IGP designation (awarded in 2015) specifically protects the product as made in and around the Ligurian coastal town of Recco. The dough is elemental: flour, water, olive oil, and salt—no yeast, no leavening—mixed into a soft, elastic dough that is stretched by hand to extreme thinness. The bottom sheet is draped into an oiled baking pan, dotted generously with pieces of crescenza cheese (a soft, fresh, tangy cow's milk cheese), then the top sheet is stretched over it and sealed at the edges. The assembled focaccia is drizzled with olive oil and baked in a blazing-hot wood-fired oven (350-400°C) for just 4-5 minutes, during which the dough puffs, blisters, and chars in patches while the cheese melts into a molten mass. The result—pulled from the oven, cut into irregular pieces, and served immediately—is transcendent: the dough crackling and paper-thin, the cheese stretching in long, gooey strings, the surface golden and charred in spots. Focaccia di Recco must be eaten within minutes of baking—delay of even 15 minutes causes the dough to soften and the cheese to solidify, destroying the textural magic.

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