I just love homemade bread at the moment. It smells so good and tastes so much better than store bought. The no knead sandwich bread from 2 weeks ago is so versatile it makes it easy to make different flavours whenever your feel like something a bit more exotic.
I’ve just made a wholemeal with fresh thyme which smells amazing, but on show today I have for you olive and rosemary bread.
Olive with rosemary is a match made in heaven, if heaven is somewhere near the Acropolis. Give this a go and try it with some avocado smeared on top, delicious!
Good enough to eat straight, just like this!
Olive and Rosemary Bread
4 cups of bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp of yeast (no more)
2 to 2.25 cups of water
1 cup of olives, well drained
1tbs of fresh rosemary, chopped
The instructions are straight from the Sandwich Bread Recipe with you should check out if you want more photos of the process.
Mix your flour, salt and yeast well.
Mix through the water. You don’t have to have it perfectly smooth, but avoid lumps of dry flour being left. You should have a wetter dough than normal bread dough, but not too watery. If it is too wet when you prepare the second rise.
Loosely cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest 12 to 20 hours (preferably closer to 20 hours). The dough will more than double in size.
After the long rise that does all the hard work for you, scrape the dough onto a floured surface. The dough will be very moist, sticky and goopy, this is good.
Adding the second layer of flavour – see the olive from the last layer poking its head out on the left from between the folds?
Add your flavours now: spread half the olives and rosemary on the top, then fold the edges over to meet in the middle, then do the same thing again with the remaining olives and rosemary. Fold until you get a long rectangle. Make sure the dough is well covered in flour and then dump the dough (fold side up) into your pan. Leave it to rise for 2 hours.
About ½ an hour before you cook the bread, turn on your oven to 240 degrees Celsius (460 degrees Fahrenheit). After the second rise, bake the bread for around 45 minutes, turning the oven down to about 210 degrees (410 Fahrenheit) for the last 15 minutes.
The bread should sound hollow when tapped once it is cooked. Let your bread rest for at least an hour after removing it from the oven before slicing.
theLABkitchen 