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Olive Rosemary Sourdough
This recipe is from our Sourdough Cookbook for Beginners. The book has beginner in the title, because we cover basic fermentation theory and break down the steps of baking, but the recipes range from a no-knead white bread to more complicated pretzels, brioche, and pasta. This olive rosemary bread has a straightforward process and an elegant outcome. It’s one of 10 artisan-style bread recipes in the book, along with 10 pan loaf recipes, 10 specialty breads, and 10 discard recipes. Some of the recipes use entirely refined flour, some a blend of flours, and some use only whole grain flour.
For this olive rosemary bread, we use whole grain flour for 30% of the flour. I like to use Kamut in this dough as it has a soft buttery flavor that balances the briny olives and aromatic rosemary. The colors of Kamut and hard white spring wheat contrast nicely with the dark olives, but when I want an extra airy loaf that still has whole grain fiber and flavor, I might use whole grain bread flour. And for a more robust wheaty flavor, turkey red is a nice option. You can also use a larger percentage of whole wheat flour, or substitute different herbs, such as thyme or tarragon instead of rosemary; or different olives, such as castelvetrano or cerignola instead of kalamata olives. You might notice that the amount of salt in the recipe is a touch lower to balance the salty olives.
One of the things we worked hard to do in our book is to give you the tools you need to make the recipes as written or to modify them: change flours, transition your starter to another flour, add berries or other additions at different stages, bake pizza with different equipment, turn your babka dough into cinnamon rolls, and more.
Olive Rosemary Sourdough
Ingredients
Instructions
Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
Pre-Shaping, Bench Rest, and Shaping
Final Proof
Baking and Storage
Notes
Serving Tip: Olive rosemary bread is a fantastic hors d’oeuvres bread. It can be eaten alone, dipped in olive oil, or served alongside a selection of cheeses. If you make a boule (round bread), you may find it easier to cut the bread in half, turn the halves onto their cut sides, and then make slices. Cutting through the crust will be easier, and the resulting half pieces are a good size for appetizers.
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Photo credit: Evi Abeler
Olive Rosemary Sourdough