Today’s bread is a hearty white bread stuffed with olives and enriched with shredded parmesan cheese. It tastes wonderful hot or cold, and is delicious slathered in butter, or smeared with herbed cheese. Adventurous types could even make sandwiches out of it. (Salami and provolone, anyone?)
I created this recipe from my standard white bread (Day 1), perfecting it through several bakings until I landed on this combination and process. The dough is very straightforward.
The tricky part of this bread is ensuring the sliced olives are not ground, minced, or mashed during the kneading (either by hand, mixer or bread machine). For this, I use a sprinkle and fold method that layers the olives throughout the dough and creates a lovely, confetti-like appearance in each slice. No one gets an edge slice without any olives or pimentos.
I chose Spanish pimento sliced olives for this loaf because of the red and green motif that looks so festive during the holidays. You can use any kind of olive, ordinary black olives are terrific, while kalamata olives are superb.
Go ahead and try this olive parmesan bread and let me know what you think.
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Ingredients
1 1/4 c warm water
1/4 c shredded parmesan cheese
4 large cloves garlic, minced
3 c white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbl dry active yeast (not quick acting)
EXTRA
1/2 c sliced Spanish pimento-stuffed olives
1 egg to make the egg wash
1/4 c water
1 tbl minced onions
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F about 15 minutes before placing bread into oven.
- Mix dough ingredients in the order listed, either in a bread machine, stand mixer, or a large baking bowl. Knead dough for about 10 minutes (or complete dough cycle in bread machine). Dough will be smooth and elastic.
- … Alternate method is to dissolve the yeast in warm water until frothy, then add to dry ingredients.
- Let dough rest in a lightly greased bowl, covered loosely with a cloth, for about 60 minutes, or until the dough roughly doubles in size.
- Remove dough from mixing bowl and place on counter. Don’t dust the counter with flour, as flour will cause separations at the folds in the bread. Dampen your hands to help dough from sticking to your fingers as you work. Pull out the dough and slap it onto the counter, then pick it up, fold it, and slap it back down onto the counter again. Using your hands or a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangle about a 3/4 to an inch thick.
- Scatter some sliced olives across the surface of the rectangle, then mash them in with your hands so they don't fall when you fold the dough. Fold the rectangle in thirds from the short edge (imagine folding a brochure). Let the dough rest for a few minutes for the gluten to relax and then press or roll the dough out again to about an inch thick. You may see olives sticking up from the top. That’s okay. Now scatter the remaining olives on this layer, then fold into thirds again. You should now have a small, rounded mound.
- Let the dough rest another few minutes, then pinch the open edges on the side of the dough closed (push in any olives away from the edges).
- Now use your hands to spin and push the mound into a ball. (A round shaped bread is called a boule.)
- Place the shaped dough onto a piece of parchment paper and let proof for 60 to 90 minutes, until roughly doubled in size.
- Whisk the egg and the water together to create the egg wash. With a pastry brush, paint the egg wash over every exposed surface of the loaf. Sprinkle the top with minced onions. (You can also sprinkle some shredded parmesan cheese, but I didn’t for the accompanying photo).
- Place parchment paper on cookie sheet, or better yet, a baking stone. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Bread will have a temperature of 205°F when done and will have a nice hollow feeling when thumped on the base.
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