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| Ignore the Little Visitor Damson... Turns out I forgot to take a photo of just the bread. |
Olive Bread
from Inn at the Crossroads
Ingredients
6.5 cups flour
1.5 Tbsp yeast
1.5 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
2 3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup chopped pitted Kalamata olives
1 sprig chopped rosemary
1/4 cup corn meal
Equipment
LARGE bowl, plastic wrap, oven, baking sheet
Instructions
In the bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the flour, yeast, and 1 cup of the water. Let it sit for 10 minutes. (I used this time to chop the olives up.) Add the salt, honey, oil, rest of the flour and water. Mix (I used a spoon) until the dough starts to come together; add olives and rosemary. Keep mixing until all the loose flour is incorporated. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let it rise for 1.5 hours. (It's supposed to expand a lot, so have a bowl big enough for that! Mine didn't expand THAT much, but I spilled some yeast...)
Dust two baking sheets with corn meal. Divide the dough (it should be sticky) into pieces (I did half; if yours rises more, thirds works too) and pull the edges under until you have a ball-shape. Set them on the baking sheets. Let them rise another 30 minutes while you preheat the oven to 450F. Slash the tops with a serrated knife (I totally forgot to do this and it wasn't devastating). Place them in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. The crust should be medium brown (see photo) and firm (I tapped it with a table knife and got a lovely hollow-ish sound).
Yields
I made two loaves; I believe when Beth made it, she got three.
Total time
about 3 hours
Cleanup rating 4/5
The dough is sticky, both of my loaves stuck a tiny bit to the pan, and you have to measure some messy stuff (I got flour everywhere, somehow, and honey is always a pain, though delicious).
Difficulty rating 6/10
For bread, this is insanely easy. It's a no-knead bread, and I managed to ace it on my first try, so it really is ridiculous how easy it is... for bread. But it's an involved process with lots of steps, and whenever you're baking, you have to be very accurate with your measuring.
Flavor rating 8/10
I love this stuff. But I like olives. Birk doesn't like olives; he isn't fond of this bread. Should go without saying, I suppose. The original post says you won't have a single bite without an olive bit in it, and I have found this to be absolutely true. You've got a basic white bread with a great crust (not thick, not hard) and salty little olive bits everywhere, and a hint of rosemary.
Adjustability: low
Maybe someone who's more accustomed to making bread would be able to adjust this recipe more, but this is the first time I've made real bread. (Sure, I made that honey beer bread, but that felt more like a hybrid biscuit-and-cake.) Maybe there are other things with similar density to olives that you could put in the dough? Use something other than rosemary to flavor it? I'm not really sure.
Make it with...
By chance, it went perfectly with what we had for dinner Saturday (a sausage-tomato-cream sauce on rigatoni). It's also a wonderful stand-alone snack. If I were having a wine-and-cheese party, I'd slice this up and set it right next to the cheese plate. It's a hearty bread but not terribly filling, so it goes with a ton of things.
Ingredients
6.5 cups flour
1.5 Tbsp yeast
1.5 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
2 3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup chopped pitted Kalamata olives
1 sprig chopped rosemary
1/4 cup corn meal
Equipment
LARGE bowl, plastic wrap, oven, baking sheet
Instructions
In the bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the flour, yeast, and 1 cup of the water. Let it sit for 10 minutes. (I used this time to chop the olives up.) Add the salt, honey, oil, rest of the flour and water. Mix (I used a spoon) until the dough starts to come together; add olives and rosemary. Keep mixing until all the loose flour is incorporated. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let it rise for 1.5 hours. (It's supposed to expand a lot, so have a bowl big enough for that! Mine didn't expand THAT much, but I spilled some yeast...)
Dust two baking sheets with corn meal. Divide the dough (it should be sticky) into pieces (I did half; if yours rises more, thirds works too) and pull the edges under until you have a ball-shape. Set them on the baking sheets. Let them rise another 30 minutes while you preheat the oven to 450F. Slash the tops with a serrated knife (I totally forgot to do this and it wasn't devastating). Place them in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. The crust should be medium brown (see photo) and firm (I tapped it with a table knife and got a lovely hollow-ish sound).
Yields
I made two loaves; I believe when Beth made it, she got three.
Total time
about 3 hours
Cleanup rating 4/5
The dough is sticky, both of my loaves stuck a tiny bit to the pan, and you have to measure some messy stuff (I got flour everywhere, somehow, and honey is always a pain, though delicious).
Difficulty rating 6/10
For bread, this is insanely easy. It's a no-knead bread, and I managed to ace it on my first try, so it really is ridiculous how easy it is... for bread. But it's an involved process with lots of steps, and whenever you're baking, you have to be very accurate with your measuring.
Flavor rating 8/10
I love this stuff. But I like olives. Birk doesn't like olives; he isn't fond of this bread. Should go without saying, I suppose. The original post says you won't have a single bite without an olive bit in it, and I have found this to be absolutely true. You've got a basic white bread with a great crust (not thick, not hard) and salty little olive bits everywhere, and a hint of rosemary.
Adjustability: low
Maybe someone who's more accustomed to making bread would be able to adjust this recipe more, but this is the first time I've made real bread. (Sure, I made that honey beer bread, but that felt more like a hybrid biscuit-and-cake.) Maybe there are other things with similar density to olives that you could put in the dough? Use something other than rosemary to flavor it? I'm not really sure.
Make it with...
By chance, it went perfectly with what we had for dinner Saturday (a sausage-tomato-cream sauce on rigatoni). It's also a wonderful stand-alone snack. If I were having a wine-and-cheese party, I'd slice this up and set it right next to the cheese plate. It's a hearty bread but not terribly filling, so it goes with a ton of things.
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