The Fresh Loaf

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Rosemary and Black Olive Country Loaf

Dave's picture
Dave

Rosemary and Black Olive Country Loaf

Hi everyone,

Love Rosemary? Love Black olives? Why not bake some bread with them!!

One of my all time faves!! I use to do this one when I was first using commercial yeast and have not had the chance to do it with sourdough. So finally I did.

Love it so much. The two really do go so well together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sublime scrambled eggs with creme fresh, crispy bacon, garlic sweet potato hash browns, OJ and fresh fruit makes for absolutely delicious accompaniments to the bread.

 

Ingredients: 70/2

540g      BF

135g      Red Fife

450g      water

150g     100% Rye Sourdough Starter @ 100% Hydration

15g       Kosher salt

398ml    Can of Pitted Whole Black Olives (I used about half the can. The rest I had with some nice Brie cheese!)

1 tbsp    Finely chopped fresh Rosemary leaves (no stem)

 

Recipe:

1. Feed starter in the morning. Peaked about 10 hours later.

2. Autolyse flour and water for 2 hours.

3. Mix starter a little bit with dough first.

4. Add salt, Rosemary and fully mix by squishing together with hands.

5. Rest for 20 minutes.

6. Perform stretch and folds, with 20 minute rest periods in between until dough is ready. On the second S&F add the whole olives. I did a total of 6 S&F.

7. Rest for 1 hour at room temp.

8. Put in fridge and retard for 24hrs.

9. Remove from fridge 2 hours before hand.

10. Dump out on work surface, shape and perform 1 tension pull.

11. Rest for 10 minutes.

12. Perform tension pulls, with 10 minute rest periods in between until dough is ready. I did 4 tension pulls until the dough held it's shape enough.

13. Proof for about 1 hour 15 min, until dough had just enough spring back.

14. Score and bake in Dutch Oven at 500 for 20 min, then remove lid and continue to bake at 425 for 20-30 min.

The aroma of the Rosemary while baking and then cooling was mouth watering!! When we finally cut it for breakfast the crumb was soft, tender with lovely open, even holes.

Getting a bite of both the olives and the rosemary at the same time is incredible!

ENJOY!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Great looking boule.  The timing of your post is perfect for me.  Just yesterday, for the first time, I baked my Bouabsa baguettes with Kalamata olives and 9% whole wheat/rye flour.  Not so sure whether the distribution of olives across all three bags was equal, but time (and eating) will tell.  Next time I'll have to take your lead and add some fresh rosemary to the dough.

Dave's picture
Dave

Nice color. And love to see those olives pop up on the outside as well. The Kalamata olives must have added a nice bit of saltiness. Great work!

I have not had the chance to even try baking baguettes. I think it's about time!

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Great looking bread. I love an olive loaf and with Rosemary too. The crumb is excellent. 

By chance I also made an Tomato sourdough today with Rosemary and also added in olives. Almost exactly like yours but with tomato puree in the dough too. It's by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou and I think, nay, 'know? You'll love it. 

Dave's picture
Dave

Tomato puree sounds interesting. How did it turn out?? I would love to give that a go. Recipe please!

Cheers!

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Tomato Sourdough by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou

 

Recipe:

 

400g (3.5 cups) bread flour

10g (2 tsp) salt

2 + 1/2 tbsp chopped rosemary leaves

6g (1 + 1/4 tsp) nigella seeds

40g (2 tbsp) tomato paste

200g (3/4 cup) warm water

300g (1 + 1/2 cups) white flour sourdough starter (100% hydration)

2 tsp olive oil

-- and I added in some black olives according to taste.

 

Method

 

Add into one bowl the flour, salt, seeds & rosemary. This is your dry mixture.

In another, larger bowl, mix the tomato paste, water, sourdough starter & olive oil. This is your wet mixture.

Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix till all comes together (I knead the good old fashioned way a little at this stage till some gluten formation is visible). Cover with plastic wrap & let stand for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, do stretch and folds in the bowl. Pinch a little of the dough from the opposite side of the bowl, pull it up and over towards you then press it down in the middle. Rotate the bowl slightly and repeat, going round the dough till you feel it resisting. Cover the bowl again and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

Repeat the kneading cycle so you've done 4 in all. Then after the 4th stretch and folds cover the bowl and let it rest for one hour.

ADD YOUR CHOPPED UP OLIVES WHEN DOING THE FOURTH STRETCH AND FOLD

After 1hr turn the dough onto a floured surface and shape then place in banneton for final proofing. Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Should take 3-6 hours depending on how active your starter is.

Pre-heat the oven to 475 F with your method to generate steam ready.

Turn the dough out onto the tray or stone you use, score, and place in the oven with whatever method you are adding your steam. Turn the oven down to 425 F. Bake for 40min or until ready.

Let bread cool completely before slicing.

Dave's picture
Dave

Very nice Abe! Thanks for the recipe. I will definitely try this.

Cheers!

GregS's picture
GregS

You have inspired me to try this. I thought I was up to speed on bread terminology, but what is a "tension pull"?

GregS

Dave's picture
Dave

Tension pull is for creating a nice tight surface on the dough. It's just a different way of folding it under to create that tight surface.

First you round off the dough with your hands, then place your hands, finger tips together at the top end of the dough. Then pull the dough back toward you as your hands slip under the dough. You should see and feel the dough being pulled under itself.

Hope this helps.

Good luck with the bread and let me know how it goes.

Cheers!

 

 

 

GregS's picture
GregS

That clarifies it. Thanks.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

but the wife and daughter hate olives in anything.  Can you imagine that?  So, I don't get to make much olive bread but when I do I'm going to add rosemary and ....maybe some sun dried tomato, parm and pecorino in there too really make me feel that i'm back in Italy:-)

That crust and crumb of our bread is fantastic.  Well done and happy baking Dave

Dave's picture
Dave

Your hilarious dabrow!

I have met people as well who do not like olives and no I can't imagine that! I got into olives and cheese while my partner and I were in Europe. Holland actually. Their cheese markets are huge and they love to give out free samples. Some of the best farmers cheese I've ever had. We would by some every night and have olives, cheese and fruit back in our hotel room. It was awesome!!

I was going to do sun dried tomatoes with this, but I chickened out. Next time!!

Cheers!!

 

a_warming_trend's picture
a_warming_trend

lovely loaf, and perfect scrambled eggs!

Dave's picture
Dave

Thanks so much! Once I learned how to do scrambles eggs this way, I never looked back. Thanks to Gordon Ramsay.

Cheers!

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

That's a beautiful loaf!  I'm one of those - no love for olives - but rosemary is a different story.  It's like a peanut butter cookie for me - really comfortable :) 

I'm also a huge fan of Red Fife and have some to use.  I'm going to bake with your formula sans olives but did you actually use yeast?  You do mention it in the method but not the formula.  That's a beautiful rise for 70% Red Fife so I'm hoping you did use some yeast.  My starter is good but it's not turbo powered.  It would never rise that well for that much Red Fife. 

Actually the whole presentation is lovely. Not good to look at at this hungry time of night :)  I'll be scrambling some eggs before you know it. 

 

Dave's picture
Dave

I did use yeast, how ever not commercial type. I use a 100% rye starter @ 100% hydration. Which means when I'm ready to use my starter I feed it equal parts flour, equal parts water.

So it would look like this for example: If I start off with 100g of starter I would feed it 100g Rye flour, and 100g water. To make for 300g total stater. Then when it has peaked I use 150g of starter.

I bake about twice a week so I don't feed my starter again and put it back in the fridge. I just put it back in the fridge with about 100g of peaked starter left over. Then when I'm ready to use it, I feed it the flour and water and after about 10 hours it's ready to go. I found that not feeding it before it goes back in the fridge works really well in giving me a more sour starter when ready to use.

As for my Red Fife, I'm only using 20% in the total formula. Not 70%. The 70/2 beside the ingredients means 70% hydration and 2% salt.

I also am a huge fan of Red Fife!! I love it so much that it's pretty well all I bake bread with. And some wicked rye as well. But it has kept me from experimenting with other grains. Which I must do.

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

Dave's picture
Dave

on my ingredients Jane. Thanks for noticing. I just realized that I put down 540g of Red Fife and 135g of BF. It's suppose to be the other way around. I just corrected it.

Your right. I probably would not have the oven spring like that with a 70% Red Fife. Day dreaming!

And I also fixed "yeast". I meant to say starter. Sorry for the confusion. Major day dreaming!!

Cheers!