Looking for a new apple baking recipe? Try apple-cinnamon focaccia!! A sweet focaccia bread you’ll want to slice for weekend brunch or an afternoon treat!

Golden edges that crackle when you cut them, pillowy bread with little pockets of cinnamon butter, and tender apples tucked into a glossy brown sugar topping: this apple cinnamon focaccia gives you plenty of reasons to turn on your oven!

What Does Apple Cinnamon Focaccia Taste Like?

Think of airy, olive oil bread topped with buttery cinnamon apples, with just enough sweetness to enjoy alongside coffee.

Its interior stays springy and gently chewy, while oil underneath helps create a golden bottom crust; brown sugar melts around apple pieces and leaves small, sticky pockets across its surface.

My recommendation is to keep sweetness mostly in your topping, which allows bread itself to have a pleasant, lightly salty flavor. Vanilla glaze adds a sweeter finish, but you can leave it off if you prefer a breakfast bread that lets apples do more talking.

Ingredients

For the Focaccia Dough

• 500 g bread flour, about 4 cups plus 2 tablespoons
• 400 g water, about 1⅔ cups
• 7 g instant yeast, 2¼ teaspoons
• 25 g granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons
• 10 g fine salt, about 1⅔ teaspoons
• 2 tablespoons mild olive oil
• 1 teaspoon additional olive oil
• 2 tablespoons additional olive oil

For the Apple Cinnamon Topping

• 350 g cored apples, about 3 heaped cups of small pieces
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• ⅓ cup packed light brown sugar, about 70 g, divided
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• ⅛ teaspoon fine salt

For the Optional Vanilla Glaze

• ½ cup powdered sugar, about 60 g
• 2–3 teaspoons milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Yield: One 9 × 13-inch focaccia, cut into 12 squares

Servings: 12

How to Make Apple Cinnamon Focaccia 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk bread flour, instant yeast, granulated sugar, and salt until evenly distributed, then add lukewarm water and 2 tablespoons olive oil.

Stir with a sturdy spatula for about 2 minutes, scraping along your bowl’s bottom until no dry flour remains; your mixture will look sticky, rough, and rather untidy, which is exactly where you want to start.

Scrape dough together, cover your bowl, and leave it at room temperature for 20 minutes so flour has time to absorb water before you handle it.

Wet your fingers, slide one hand beneath an edge of dough, and gently lift until you feel resistance, then fold that stretched section over its center.

Turn your bowl a quarter turn and repeat until you have folded all four sides, stopping short of tearing dough; this is one set of folds.

Cover and rest for 20 minutes, then repeat, followed by another 20-minute rest and a third set of folds. By this point, dough should feel smoother and more elastic, although it will still stick to dry hands, so keep that little bowl of water nearby!

After your final folds, use a spatula to ease dough away from your bowl just enough to drizzle 1 teaspoon olive oil around and underneath it, then turn it gently to coat.

Cover and let rise for another 45–75 minutes in a comfortably warm spot, around 75–78°F / 24–26°C, until it looks roughly doubled compared with its size just after mixing, with bubbles along its edges and a soft wobble when you nudge your bowl.

In a cooler kitchen, allow longer; a small amount of puffiness is not your cue to rush ahead.

While dough rises, melt 1 tablespoon butter in a wide skillet over medium heat, add your apple pieces, and cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Sprinkle in 1 tablespoon of your measured brown sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, lemon juice, and ⅛ teaspoon salt, then cook for another 2–4 minutes until apples look glossy and slightly softened, with little to no watery liquid left in your pan.

A knife should enter with some resistance because apples will finish cooking in your oven; if they release more juice, cook a little longer rather than transferring a puddle onto your bread. Spread apples on a plate and cool to room temperature before using.

Pour 2 tablespoons olive oil into your metal baking pan and spread it across its base and up its sides.

Gently scrape risen dough into your pan, turn it once so both sides pick up a little oil, then use lightly oiled fingers to ease it outward without pressing away all those bubbles.

If dough springs back before reaching your corners, cover it and wait 15 minutes before stretching again; that pause is part of your final rise, and it works much better than wrestling bread into submission.

Cover your pan with an inverted tray or lightly oiled plastic wrap, leaving room for expansion, and let dough rise for about 60–90 minutes from when it entered your pan.

It should spread close to all four corners, look noticeably thicker and airy, and jiggle softly when you shake your pan; you may see a few large bubbles just beneath its surface.

If it still looks tight and flat at 90 minutes, give it more time. During your final 30 minutes of rising, position an oven rack just below center and preheat to 425°F / 220°C so your oven is fully hot when dough is ready.

Stir remaining brown sugar and remaining 1½ teaspoons cinnamon together in a small bowl, then melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter and let it cool until lukewarm.

Uncover your puffy dough, drizzle butter evenly over its surface, and coat your fingertips in a little of that butter before pressing straight down to create deep dimples across your pan.

Let your fingertips approach its base without dragging dough or flattening it with your palms; an irregular landscape of little hollows and puffy sections is exactly right.

Scatter cooled apples evenly over dough, leaving small patches of bread visible, and gently nestle pieces into some of those dimples without crushing surrounding bubbles.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar across apples and exposed dough, keeping it on your bread rather than spilling it against bare pan edges where it can burn.

Bake immediately once topped, since letting sugared apples sit on dough for another long rise encourages moisture to collect.

Bake for 28–35 minutes, checking at around 22 minutes to see how quickly your topping is coloring.

Look for a rich golden crust around edges, lightly browned exposed dough, and bubbling sugar around tender apple pieces; if your top is already dark enough before bread has baked through, loosely tent it with foil for remaining time.

A thin spatula should reveal a golden underside, and an instant-read thermometer inserted into bread at its center, avoiding apple pieces, should register approximately 200–205°F / 93–96°C.

If your center still looks wet or gummy, continue baking for a few minutes and check again.

Rest focaccia in its pan for 5–10 minutes, then loosen edges carefully and slide it onto a wire rack using wide spatulas.

Let it cool for at least another 10–15 minutes before cutting; this gives its crumb time to set and allows steam to escape underneath instead of softening your crisp base.

Those glossy sugar pockets are very hot straight from your oven, so this is an excellent moment to make coffee rather than test your fingertip’s commitment to dessert.

If using glaze, whisk powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons milk, and vanilla until smooth, adding remaining milk a little at a time until it falls from your spoon in a thick ribbon.

Drizzle lightly over warm, rather than piping-hot, focaccia so it stays visible instead of disappearing into bread.

Cut into 12 squares with a serrated knife, using gentle sawing motions to preserve that soft interior, and serve while edges still have a little crunch!

Serving Suggestions

• For breakfast or brunch, serve a warm square with coffee, tea, or a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt on your plate. Tangy yogurt works especially well with sweet apples and vanilla glaze, while scrambled eggs alongside make it part of a more substantial meal.
• For dessert, warm an unglazed square and add a small scoop of vanilla ice cream just before serving. Butter, cinnamon, and tender apples already bring plenty of flavor, so I would skip extra caramel sauce unless you deliberately want a much sweeter dessert.
• If you leave off glaze, try a slice with a little sharp cheddar on your brunch plate. That salty bite is a lovely match for brown sugar apples!

Apple cinnamon focaccia is at its best when you can hear a little crunch as your knife passes through its base, then see soft, airy bread beneath those buttery apple pieces.

Give dough time to puff, keep your topping free of excess liquid, and let that golden slab rest briefly before cutting; you will have a fragrant pan of cinnamon-sweet bread worth gathering around, with corner pieces that tend to disappear first!