Olives, saltiness and bread – what an amazing combination! Just add some butter and it is the perfect accompaniment to just about any dish or soup. Unlike commercially bought olive breads, these are just jam packed with olives and often feel more olive than bread – a great source of fibre?
These bread rolls can be made either as proper buns/rolls or as breadsticks. The recipe below shows how to make them as breadsticks, but they can easily be made into rolls or buns, especially if one has the right size bread molds.
The recipe also differs from traditional baking approaches in that it uses a regular mixer instead of pushing the baker to faf around with kneading – a great time and effort saver!
Olive Bread Rolls (Yeast Based)
Course: Sides, Snacks, Lunch, DinnerCuisine: Italian, MediterraneanDifficulty: Hard12
servings3
hours20
minutes150
kcal3
hours20
minutesOlive bread is a Mediterranean delicacy, a bread stuffed with olives that can be eaten as-is or as a side-dish to a soup, stew or salad. Simply cut a slice, lather on some butter and enjoy warm or cold.
Ingredients
500g White bread flour
400 mL Water (tepid, filtered)
1 tbsp Sugar
10g Salt
10g Instant Yeast
3 tbsp Olive Oil
300g Green Olives, pitted
200g Black Olives, pitted
Directions
- Mix 100 mL water, with the sugar and the yeast and allow to bloom.
- Drain the olives in a colander and set aside.
- In the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook, add the flour and the salt and start to stir at low speed.
- Add in the water with the yeast. Then slowly add in the rest of the water until the dough starts to come together (usually about 90% of the water). Mix for a minute, then add the last of the water.
- Increase the speed to medium speed and mix for a further 8 minutes to stretch it.
- Reduce the speed back to low, add the olive oil and mix for another 2 minutes.
- Add in the well drained olives and mix on low until the olives are evenly distributed.
- Oil a tub (a square one helps later on) and cover with a tea-towel and allow to rise until it has tripled in size (at least 1 hour).
- Lightly oil 2-3 baking trays or line them with parchment paper (in the pictures, I used a tray with individual sized wells instead).
- Dust the worksurface with some flour and tip out the dough being careful not to let the air out. Handle with care!
- Carefully stretch the dough into a rough rectangle and cut it into strips, about 1 inch (2.5cm) wide.
- Stretch the dough into strips about 25cm long, adding in 1-2 twists, if you want.
- Cover the trays with a tented tea-towel and allow to rise for a further 30 minutes.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190C for 15-20 minutes.
- Allow to cool on a wire rack.
