Green Olive And Pimento Bread

Danny really likes olives with pimentos which even I think is gross, and I love olives. A small child can only eat so many, and the jar was getting old so I drained them and dumped them into bread dough. I adjusted the salt for the olives and added some olive oil to give it depth. Overall, I think it is pretty good without being terribly expensive (I think it was a .50 cent jar of store brand olives).

Guess we're having grilled cheese sandwiches tomorrow.

You Will Need:

Preferment:
4 cups bread flour
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 tablespoon salt
Water-enough to wet the flour without making it soupy.

Mix together and cover with plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature 12 hours (or overnight is fine).

Next Day:

To the preferment add:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sliced olives
1 tablespoon sugar
3-4 cups bread flour

Mix everything but flour together. Add the flour a cup at a time until you have a workable dough that is not sticky. Knead until elastic. If you use a mixer, leave the olives out and mix them in by hand at the end or they will be too broken up by the dough hook.

Place in an oiled bowl and let rise slowly until doubled-about 2 hours. Deflate and divide in two.Let rest ten minutes. Shape and place on a cornmeal dusted pan (I actually used semolina today) and sprinkle with a bit of flour. Cover and let rise until doubled-another hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Create steam using whatever method works well for you and slash the loaves. Load into the oven and bake 20 minutes. Rotate pan and bake another 20-30 minutes or until loaves are dark and have an internal temperature of around 200 degrees F.

Cool on racks.