Rustic Olive Bread

Flicking through the latest Gourmet Traveller which I rec’d last night in the mail I noticed this recipe for Rustic Olive Bread & thought it would be great to give it a go. I haven’t baked much bread & love olive bread so thought it was about time I tried to make my own & it should go well with the risotto I’m making for Michael’s mum & sister Julie for dinner tonight.

The recipe is adapted from Stephanie Alexanders in the Cooks Companion so I grabbed that off the shelf & compared the differences. The ingredients are exactly the same & only the method is slightly different. Stephanie’s says to knead the dough on an oiled workbench & the magazine’s says floured. I ended up going with floured as the mixture was quite sticky & felt it needed the extra though as I said I really don’t have much experience so could be wrong. Apart from that Stephanie suggests different shapes you can bake it in, loaf or focaccia.

For the olives I used 2/3 kalamata from a jar that I bought at the supermarket & then when they ran out for the last third I used delicious herb & garlic kalamata olives by Nicolas of Dimboola, I picked these up at the Vic produce market last weekend.

I also kneaded by hand rather than using my electric mixer.

The end result was delicious & will definitely be playing with more bread again soon

Rustic Olive Bread

600gm unbleached ‘00’ (strong) flour
1 tablespoon instant dried yeast
150gm pitted black olives (such as Kalamata) roughly chopped
2 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Sift flour, yeast & salt into a large bowl, stir through olives & rosemary, make a well in the centre & add combined oil & 300ml warm water. Stir to combine. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface & knead with oiled hands (or transfer to an electric mixer with bread hooks) for 15 minutes or until dough is smooth & elastic. Transfr to a lightly oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover with a clean tea towel and stand in a draught free palce for 15 minutes or until doubles in size.

Transfer dough to am oiled baking tray & flatten into a 2-3cm thick rectangle, scatter with sea salt flakes, drizzle with olive oil & rest for 30 minutes. Bake at 220c for 20 minutes or until brown & crisp.