Homemade Black Olive Bread

The black olives bread is particularly convenient as a springy and sunny bread. You can easily bring it to work and have it for lunch instead of a sandwich. You can also serve it as an appetizer or eat it as a treat.

On very hot days, we use to serve the black olives bread with a niçoise mixed salad for lunch, it’s ideal when it’s too hot for craving high caloric dishes. Well, there’s always a moment to devour a black olives bread, whether you’re very hungry or not!

I’ve just baked some of these for this evening for some friends I’ve invited at home to have a drink. Want to bake some? Don’t worry, it’s an easy black olives bread recipe, it’s not a hard work, you just have to know you’ll need about 2 hours to allow bread to rise. My kitchen temperature was 23°c and you have to adapt the rising time according to your room temperature.

Ready? Let’s go!

To make black olives bread, you need 15 minutes preparation, 2 hours rising time, 15 minutes baking.

Ingredients for 4 very thin sticks that we call “ficelles”

240 gr Flour
40 gr Chopped pitted black olives (about 20)
2 gr Fresh yeast
3 gr Salt
20 cl Cold water

Instructions

Put flour into the bowl of food processor and fit with the hook attachment.

Crumble yeast, put it with flour and pour 3/4 of the water.

Combine ingredients over medium speed until the mixture is cohesive (2 min)

Knead for about 8 minutes. Add remaining water while kneading, a little by little, as soon as the dough as enough strength. Add salt 1 minute before the end.

Add olives and knead over high speed until totally combined.

Flour your table work, remove dough from the bowl and gather into a ball.

Divide the dough into 4 and flatten each piece with fingertips before you shape it.

It’s time to shape the sticks.Place your fingers at the top.

Fold it over and seal with your fingers.

Fold it over and seal again.

Place then your fingers in the center and roll very gently from the center to the outer.

They should look like these…

Cover with a wet kitchen towel.Let rise for 2 hours at room temperature(23°C in my kitchen)

Preheat oven to 250°c and slash sticks with a razor blade or a knife.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes according to your taste. I’ve baked mine for 15 minutes. Remove from oven as soon as it’s baked and brush with olive oil to give your sticks a nice glaze.

Enjoy!