Olive bread

[Sanny]

Here's a recipe I modified from a favorite cookbook. My modification is to use the "no knead" NY Times article's baking method with another recipe. It works great!! The original recipe is for a baguette pan (gently plop dough into a three loaf baguette pan, and bake in hot oven). Don't have one, don't want to go get one, and the dutch oven fits in my ceramic.

It could be easily modified further for baking on a ceramic cooker (use the cooker instead of the oven). Your dough MAY be firm enough to put on a hot baking stone instead of a pan, but it's a pretty wet dough. I'd not count on it.

If you want, you can make the dough the day before, and let it age in the frigerator. It gets tastier that way. Instructions for that are at the end.

Olive bread (modified recipe)

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tsp salt (kosher) (I reduce this if I’m using all brine from the olives)

2 1/4 cups unbleached bread flour

2 teaspoons black olive tapanade

3/4 cup chopped kalamata olives (leave a few of them whole, for texture)

3/4 cup brine from olives (or water to make up difference)

2 1/4 cups unbleached bread flour

2 tablspoons olive oil

MIXING: In big bowl, pour in 1 1/4 cups water, and sprinkle yeast on top. Mix until dissolved. Add 2 1/4 cups flour, tapenade, chopped olives, salt, and stir until smooth (about 2 minutes). I use a wooden spoon – no need for mixer. Add remaining flour and brine from the olives, and stir until flour is incorporated. It’s a wet dough. I find that using my hands to incorporate the flour works well.

Cover the bowl and let it sit for 30-40 minutes, until doubled.

Oil your hands with some of the olive oil, and reach in gently to fold the dough over itself. Side over side, front over back. Don’t beat it to death. Cover and sit for another 30-40 mins.

BAKING: While the dough is resting, fire up the oven to 500 degrees. Put a 12 inch (or so) casserole or some sort of deep pot (with a lid for later) in the oven while the oven heats. I use a cast iron dutch oven.

When the oven is hot, and the dough is risen, use a spatula to plop the dough into the hot pot, and cover. Turn down the heat to 400. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover, and bake another 15 minutes, or until happily browned.

Remove from oven, tip out of pan onto a wire rack to cool.

IN THE ALTERNATIVE, you can make the dough the day before. Once you mix all the stuff together and cover the bowl, put it in the frigerator. The dough will perk along happily there. Take it out of the frigerator the next day, and let it sit at room temp for 2 hours. Then heat the oven and follow bake instructions.

[Hogwart]

Olive Bread

Hey Sanny - I assume that you try to keep the "seams" from the folds on top when you put the dough into the pot to cook.

[Sanny]

Re: Olive Bread

Hey Sanny - I assume that you try to keep the "seams" from the folds on top when you put the dough into the pot to cook.

By the time it gets to the pot, there are no seams. Just a blop.