Unbelievably Good Black Olive Bread Recipe

This Black Olive Bread recipe produces rustic loaves with Mediterranean flavors and an artisan character.

Olive Bread Slices N45 Side (26) - miLam

Makes 2 large loaves (3¼ lbs each)

I came up with this bread about four years ago, when I was on vacation – yeah, because that’s what I do on vacation: bake bread! Anyway, even after 4 years, I am still in regularly asked to make it again. Olive Bread goes great with cheese and can stand up to and pair well with strong flavors. It’s also man enough for your most ambitious sandwich. But you could just as easily enjoy it with nothing more than a dipping bowl of seasoned oil.

Ingredients for the Sponge

½ cup spring or filtered water
½ tsp active dry yeast
¾ cup light wheat flour[1]

Ingredients for the Final Dough

2½ cups spring or filtered water
¼ cup olive oil (optionally)
The rest of the packet of active dry yeast
1 Tbs salt
Black olives;[2]15 oz. minimum, 30 oz. maximum; drained, pitted, and chopped
1 red onion (optionally), chopped, sautéed, and cooled
½ cup (packed) fresh thyme (coriander, marjoram, or oregano are interesting substitutions)[3]
5¼ – 6¼ cups[3] light wheat flour

Directions

1. Make the sponge: the water should be warm, but not hot.[4] Do this by either nuking it, or by mixing cold and hot water until you’ve arrived at the right temperature. Put the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top. Let it sit for 1 minute, then stir. Add the flour and stir just until blended. Then, stir it vigorously for 100 strokes. It should be smooth, thick, and sticky – the consistency of a very thick chocolate shake, if milkshakes were sticky. Add water to achieve this consistency, if needed. Scrape down the sides with a spatula. Place a damp cloth over it, and let it sit in a warm spot for anywhere from 2 to 10 hours. It should double in volume, appear bubbly, and smell yeasty or beer-like.

Olive Bread, via Make It Like a Man! black olive bread reicpe

2. Mix and knead the final dough: scrape the sponge into a large mixing bowl. Add all ingredients except the flour. Stir. Begin adding flour by heaping half-cupsful, stirring after each. Eventually, it will become too difficult to stir. At that point, dump it onto a floured surface and continue adding successively smaller amounts of flour, mixing it together with a bench scraper and your hands. In time, it will come to the point that you can knead it. Continue kneading and adding flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Note that in the beginning, you’re adding relatively large amounts of flour, and it doesn’t take long to incorporate them. As you move along, it takes longer and longer to incorporate the flour, and you add less and less of it each time. The final dough should be able to sustain a several-minute kneading without becoming sticky. 3. Clean out and dry the mixing bowl. Then, butter (or oil) it. Place the dough in the bowl, then remove it from the bowl, turn it upside down, and place it back in the bowl. This gets butter all over the dough. Cover the bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap, and let it sit until the dough doubles in size. I often let his happen in the fridge overnight. In that case, it has to come to room temperature before proceeding.

4. Punch the dough down. Tip the bowl on its side and pull the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide it in half and form each half into a ball. Cover each of them with oiled plastic wrap, and let them rest for 30 minutes.

5. Form each half into whatever final shape you want, or put each into a buttered bread pans. Lightly flour them, and cover them with oiled plastic wrap. Let them rise until they pass the ripe test, about 2 hours.

6. At least 20 minutes before the loaves are ready for baking, pre-heat the oven to 450°F. Just before placing the loaves in the oven, score them. This is mainly for aesthetic purposes; you can skip it if you want. Just after placing the loaves in the oven, throw ½-cup of water onto the oven floor, and quickly close the door. Bake the loaves for 15-20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 400°F and continue to bake for 15-20 minutes more. The finished loaves should be richly browned. Test the loaves by removing them from the pan and tapping them on the bottom. They should sound hollow. If they need more time, place them back into the oven, in or out of the pans. Let them cool on a rack, out of the pans. The inside of the bread continues to cook for several minutes as it rests on the rack. Wait until the loaf feels completely room temperature. If you cut into it then and the inside is still just the coziest warm, huge bonus.

Try lightly toasting a few pieces. Top them with thin slices of white cheddar and enjoy them with a cup of medium-roast, black coffee.

Notes

[1] Light Wheat Flour: Make light wheat flour by combining 3 parts unbleached white flour (preferably bread flour, but if you don’t have any on hand, use all-purpose) with 1 part stone-ground whole wheat flour. For each cup of white flour, add 1 Tbs raw or toasted wheat germ, optionally. Mix up your light wheat flour beforehand. For this recipe, use a 2-cup measure as your “part” and you’ll have just about as much flour as you need. If you have a bit left over, let it substitute for some of the flour in your next whatever; it’s a great addition to cookie dough. On the other hand, if you find toward the end of kneading the dough that you need just a handful more flour than you have, don’t bother mixing up a new batch – just throw in a handful of white flour. Do not think that you’re going to just break down the white/wheat measurements on the fly, or eyeball it. No, I tell you! No! It’s too difficult, and if you don’t get the balance right, you’ll wind up with disappointing results. As you increase the amount of wheat flour, you increase heaviness and bitterness, both of which either need to be welcome or countered. If you’re eyeballing it, you’re going to have a hard time knowing exactly where you are on this spectrum.
[2] Black Olives: Greek … Kalamata, perhaps. Or any other type of black olive you enjoy. Or, substitute green, or a mix of black and green.
[3] Fresh Herbs: If you substitute dried herbs, go with ¼-cup + 2 Tbs. Consider substituting mustard seed for some of the dried herbs.
[3] Flour Measure: I’m giving you measurements because that’s what people do when they write recipes. Plus, it is helpful to have some idea how much flour you need, so you know you have enough on hand. However, the measurements are misleading in a sense. I do not measure the flour that I use to make dough. I just keep adding it, as described in the directions, until I realize I’m done. That’s how my grandmother did it, and I thought she was crazy … until I realized that she was a genius.
[4] Temp: 75˚F, although I do it by feel rather than with a thermometer.

Black Olive Bread Recipe
Inspired by Bread Alone. I highly recommend their bread baking books.

Credits for all images on this page: hover over image and/or green caption text. Click to jump to source.

Salmon Rushdie
Chicken over Pasta in a Brie and Bacon Sauce

19 thoughts on “Unbelievably Good Black Olive Bread Recipe

  1. Lovely. I’ve made a lot of olive breads over the years, especially when I catered. I also loved mixing the olives. This one is very pretty!

    Mimi recently posted…Coffee Butter

    • I’d be happy to make you some, Israel, and overnight it to you. Let’s see … that’ll be $500.

  2. What a great looking, rustic loaf. We adore olive bread, having had it many years ago, I keep trying to recreate an ever fading memory of the bread. Perhaps it was like your version, so I’ll have to give it a try. I might even do a combo of black olives, I’m particularly interested in the sun-dried olives which are very salty with a slightly iodine-like flavour, for some reason I am totally addicted to them! During our last trip to Europe, I purchased two Round Proofing Bannetons which will be perfect for this rustic loaf.

    Eva Taylor recently posted…Restaurant Review: Goodfellas Bloor West Village

  3. Olives are the tits. And I used to ADORE bread. I have yet to try my hand at making a GIGI APPROVED one – but your inspiration pushes me further towards wanting to make it sooner!!

  4. Hey! Baking bread is what I do on vacation, too. Well that is when I have access to flour, yeast and an oven…and a bunch of time. I love this bread! I bet it would go well with a shmear of goat cheese.

    David @ Spiced recently posted…Louisiana Crunch Cake

  5. Baking bread is what I do if I don’t have access to a gun but still really want to punish myself. Will I try this? It sounds yummy. But it also sounds like it involves one ingredient I’m always really short on: patience.
    Jay recently posted…Cool Shit on Netflix

    • I totally understand! The secret it to let go of patience, and instead not give a flying fuck. While the bread’s rising, start catching up on all The Leftovers that you’ve missed, and then suddently scream, “Shit! That bread!” And then you’ll find that it did all its rising on its own, with no help from you. I always bake bread when I’ve got tons of other stuff to do.

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