Meyer Lemon Focaccia

Fruity, floral, and intoxicating, the smell of meyer lemons brings back so many memories of my first winter in California. I had never tasted one before, and they were everywhere - so exotic to me, but so common here.

One of my favorite fruits, meyer lemons are a combination of lemons and mandarin oranges. They're exceptionally fragrant, slightly sweeter than a regular lemons but still tart, thin skinned, and very juicy.


Because of their sweeter flavor and thin skin, meyer lemons are perfect for many cooking applications where a regular lemon might be to bold. The perfect example is this flavorful meyer lemon focaccia.

The dough after its overnight rise

Did I mention I also love baking bread? In the past year especially, baking yeasted breads has become a real hobby of mine (probably because I finally figured out how to use my food processor to knead dough!). This foccacia calls for a very easy dough that needs an overnight rest, but very little actual work in between.

Meyer lemons, sliced as thinly as I could manage without a mandolin.

The topping for the focaccia is very strong, but trust the recipe - the sugar, salt, lemon and rosemary combine to create a truly mesmerizing blend of flavors. Every bite is tart, sweet, herbacious and salty, and the chewy bread below is the perfect foil to the bold flavors. A liberal dousing of extra virgin olive oil doesn't hurt things, either.

Sprinkled with coarse sugar, salt, rosemary, sliced meyer lemon, and a generous douse of olive oil

You can see the recipe over at Food52 - the only change I made was mixing the dough in my food processor, since I don't have a stand mixer.

It's a dangerously delicious bread - the recipe makes two rounds, and both disappeared much more quickly than one might have expected!

Next up? I want to try a focaccia with thinly sliced blood oranges and oil-cured black olives. I'll let you know how it turns out!

In the mean time, if you're interested to see what I make on a more regular basis, you can check out my Instagram. You can also see my writing for SheKnows, covering everything from 25 amazing kale recipes to a mystery creature found in a can of tuna, here.