Kalamata Olive Sourdough

So, as a college student, it's oftentimes hard to bake consistently. Especially considering I pretty much only bake long-fermented sourdough breads. Things have been pretty busy, so I hadn't baked for a while.

I decided I'd like to try tweaking around my timing to see if I can possibly fit in baking easier to my schedule. I'd bought a jar of olives to snack on, and saw my starter as I was putting it into my fridge -- an idea formed in my mind.

I decided to make my ordinary sourdough bread, only with the addition of kalamata olives. Instead of doing an overnight levain, mixing in the morning, and baking it off in the evening, I'd try starting the day before, retarding the bulk ferment overnight, and then dividing, shaping, and proofing in the morning for a mid-day bake.

It came out wonderfully:

It

I'm definitely out of practice -- shaping didn't go all that well and the crumb is tighter than I'd like it to be. But, the flavor is exquisite -- slightly tangy, wheaty, sweet, and with a hint of olive. The crust is thin and crispy, and the crumb has a great texture  -- not too chewy, not too soft.

My normal baking schedule is something like this:

Friday 7:00pm -- mix levain

Saturday 7:00am -- begin autolyse

Saturday 8:30am -- mix dough

Saturday morning -- 4-6 turns, ~45 minutes apart

Saturday 1:00pm -- divide + preshape

Saturday 1:30pm -- shape

Saturday 4:30pm -- preheat oven

Saturday 5:30pm -- bake

This time, I did something completely different:

Friday 9:20am -- mix levain and begin autolyse

Friday 1:30pm -- mix dough

Friday afternoon -- 3 turns, ~50 minutes apart

Friday 7:00pm -- put dough in fridge

Saturday 7:00am -- take out dough

Saturday 8:00am -- divide + preshape

Saturday 8:30am -- shape

Saturday 11:30am -- preheat oven

Saturday 12:30pm -- bake

It was a pleasure to work with dough again -- I'd really been missing it. Sure, this dough is quite wet, but it is a soft, extensible dough that is amazing to use.

I forgot to scale it down from baking for my family, so I made 2kg of dough, enough for 3 loaves.

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Overall Dough Characteristics:

Whole wheat flour -- 167g / 15%

White flour -- 944g / 85%

Water -- 880g / 79%

Salt -- 22g / 2%

Kalamata olives -- 165g / 15%

(Prefermented flour -- 111g / 10% -- whole wheat)

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Levain:

Whole wheat flour -- 94g / 100%

Water -- 100g / 106%

60% hydration starter -- 28g / 30%

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Final mix:

White flour -- 944g / 93%

Whole wheat flour -- 73g / 7%

Water -- 780g / 77%

Levain -- 222g / 22%

Salt -- 22g / 2%

Kalamata Olives -- 165g / 16%

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The water is an estimate because I added a bit extra to make it behave more like I wanted it to. My standard sourdough is 78% hydration, but I bumped this up closer to 80%.