Kozy Kitchen Korner!

olive bread after step 1.

It's been sort of an aggro couple of days, so to counteract, i thought that a little baking was in order. I made this really great olive bread, and it came out AMAZING, and i thought i should share the recipe. Apart from all the time you spend kicking it waiting for the dough to rise (you let it rise THREE TIMES for this recipe- that seems like A LOT to me) this is actually pretty easy. Below is the original recipe, and after that i will divulge my alterations.

INGREDIENTS
3 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped black olives
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 tablespoon cornmeal

DIRECTIONS
1.)In a large bowl, mix together flour, yeast, sugar, salt, black olives, olive oil, and water.

2.)Turn out dough onto a floured board. Knead until smooth and elastic, 5 to 10 minutes. Set aside, and let rise about 45 minutes, until it doubles in size. Punch down. Knead well again, for about 5 to 10 minutes. Let rise for about 30 minutes, until it doubles in size.

3.)Round the dough on kneading board. Place upside down in a bowl lined with a lint-free, well floured towel. Let rise until double in size.

4.)While the bread is rising for the third time, put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C).

5.)Gently turn loaf out onto a sheet pan that has been lightly oiled and dusted with cornmeal.

6.)Bake loaf at 500 degrees F (260 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Bake for 30 more minutes, or until done.

The major thing i did different was that instead of using water, i used the water that the olives were packed in- olive water, if you will. make sure you check to make sure that your olives aren't packed in vinegar or something. since the packing water for the olives also had salt in it, i omitted the dry salt from the recipe. Additionally, i added significantly more olives than instructed. I used about 1 and 1/4 cup of olives- 1 cup black, and the remainder green olives with pimento. I also added a tablespoon of italian seasoning, which i think is basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and garlic powder. i also ended up kneading in about 1/2 a cup to 3/4 cup additional bread flour. After the bread comes out, it's got this really great crust that flakes in your mouth- don't cover the bread or anything while it cools, or the crust will get soft. people say that the 500 degrees is too much, but it wasn't AT ALL. this is a great recipe, and the olive bread came out at least as good as i've gotten in any store, and probably better.

Here's a really dark picture of the finished loaf.


real quick- you can make an easy olive spread like this.

1 can whole pitted black olives
2-3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic

put in your cuisinart and blend to desired texture. you can add 1/4 cup of parmasean
cheese after you blend it if you want, but i personally prefer to just top the spread with a little bit of it as i use it up so the flavors are distinct.

I like to eat thin slices of this bread with a little butter, a little olive spread, and a little bit of parmasean cheese sprinkled on top. You can toast the bread before, or you can toast it after you've topped it with everything, and it's amazing like that, but i usually just eat it without toasting.

It's hard, but EAT SPARINGLY- it's really rich, and with the spread and everything, it's a lot of fat... it's olive fat, though, so at least it's the "good kind," right? it's better than twinkies or cheeseburgers, that's for sure.

I'm thinking i'm going to try to make some pre-baked pizza crust using the fundamentals of this recipe... i'll have to do some thinking about how to adapt it.