Olive Bread

This recipe makes one delicious loaf of olive bread. I have also added garlic, chopped rosemary and some lemon zest. It is wonderful on it's own served warm and great the next day toasted.

You will need:

1 1/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp dry yeast
2 tbsp honey
3 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose or bread flour
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
1/4 cup olives - roughly chopped
1 tsp fresh rosemary - chopped
1 tsp fresh lemon zest


Step 1: in a large bowl add warm water, olive oil, dry yeast and honey. Leave 5 minutes to get yeast to bloom.

Step 2: add 3 cups flour and salt and begin mixing in the bowl with a wooden spoon until it becomes too difficult to mix. Turn out scruffy dough (scraping every bit of flour out of bowl) and onto the counter. Continue kneading on counter. You may need a bit more flour. Keep adding it until the dough is no longer sticking to your hands and becomes soft and smooth. This will take approximately 5 minutes.

Step 3: add the olives, lemon zest, rosemary and garlic to dough. Roll up dough and continue kneading a few more minutes to distribute evenly.

Step 4: place in a greased bowl and let rise covered until doubled in size. This will take approximately 2 hours.

Step 5: once dough has risen. Punch down and form a round ball or shape into a loaf if you wish to use a loaf pan to bake it in.

I place it on a piece of parchment paper on a small baking tray. Let double again. This will take 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Bake in a 425 degree F oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden and when you knock on the bottom it feels hollow. Cool and eat.