Steffen's Dinners - Recipes and Photos

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A very flavorful sourdough olive bread with Kalamata olives.

This recipe is inspired by a recipe in , but I modified it to use a sourdough starter instead of yeast.

Ingredients

Starter

• 1/4 lb / 100g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup and 3 tbsp / 100ml water
• 2 tbsp sourdough starter culture

Olive Bread

• 3/4 lb / 300g pitted Kalamata olives, canned
• 1 1/4 lb / 560g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 lb / 110g whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup / 60ml olive oil
• 2 tsp / 10g salt
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 cup / 250ml water
• additional all-purpose flour and olive oil
• Corn meal

Preparation

1. Mix together the ingredients for the starter. Let stand overnight until the starter is very bubbly.
2. Microwave the honey for ca. 30s so that it is liquid. This also destroys antibacterial enzymes that may interfere with the sourdough development.
3. Combine starter, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, olive oil, water, honey and tarragon in a stand mixer bowl. Knead with dough hook until dough becomes elastic and cleans the bowl (7-10 minutes).
4. Form a ball, coat with olive oil and let rise until volume has doubled
5. Coarsely slice or chop the Kalamata olives. Incorporate olives into the dough. Form a ball, coat with olive oil and let rise until volume has doubled.
6. Shape dough into a loaf. Work carefully to not deflate the dough too much. Place loaf on a cutting board sprinkled with cornmeal. Let proof for ca. 30 minutes. Occasionally spray with water to prevent surface from drying out.
7. In the meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F. I bake the bread directly on a large baking stone, but a baking sheet will do if necessary.
8. Cut decorative slashes in the top of the loaf. Use very sharp knife and be careful to not deflate the dough.
9. Transfer the loaf onto the baking sheet or stone in the oven. Spray with water. Bake for 10 minutes at 375F, then reduce temperature to 350F
10. Bake until core temperature registers 210F, ca. 60-90 minutes. Check with instant-read thermometer.
11. Remove from oven and let cool before slicing