A Shaggy Dough Story

I’ve had a deep, abiding love affair with all things olive going way back to my kid days when I used to snarf them down like normal  kids chowed down on M&Ms. (Who needs chocolate when you’ve got kalamatas, right?) It’s been an unshakable love that’s withstood assaults from all sides over the years, most notably from A. the boys in 8th grade biology who threw olives at us girls during the fetal pig dissection module while yelling, “Here comes an eyeball!” and B. those cheesy Halloween haunted houses where, once again, olives were the stand-ins for eyeballs (what did these poor olives do to warrant such an indignity), and C. worst of all, a husband who can’t stand them. No matter. My olive love is steadfast and unwavering, and if Mr. Dough doesn’t like ’em, he can just pick ’em out because I’m cooking with ’em. Lots. Pitted, whole, stuffed, not stuffed, black, green and everything in between. Gimme.

So it stands to reason that I wasn’t exactly upset when olives were chosen for this month’s #TwelveLoaves theme, courtesy of Karen over at Karen’s Kitchen Stories(one of my very favorite blogs–she bakes the most beautiful breads–and other mouthwatering stuff–and is very warm and witty too. And…it was her blog that gave me the push to start mine. So if you’ve got a problem with me, take it up with her, ‘k? THANKS, KAREN! Your fault!)

Of course, I’ve baked all sorts of olive breads before but this time I thought I’d go traditional. So I headed over to the Mediterranean–where they really know their olives–for a classic Greek bread, Eliopsomo, which means–literally, olive bread. (Elio=olive, psomo=bread. Ta da!) It’s loaded with big chunks of olives, slatherings  of rich olive oil, plus onions and fresh herbs, and without a doubt it’s a killer bread. I’ve made it three times over the past three weeks and each time the entire huge loaf disappeared in record time. The Official Dough Taste Testing Team could not get enough.

I did a lot experimenting with it, not so much with the ingredients as with the method–some more successful than others–but all led to the same delicious conclusion. A soft, fragrant, savory crumb and chewy crust. And while it’s great with any number of accompaniments (Hummus? Feta? Yes, please.) it’s even better on its own so you can appreciate the salty bursts of olive, heady fragrance of the herbs and olive oil and the lightly caramelized onions in all their glory. If you’re an olive fan, you owe it to yourself to give this a try. And even if you’re not, you still ought to give it a go. It could win you over to the dark (olive) side. No eyeballs, I promise.

greek olive bread – eliopsomo

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 1–2 tbsp olive oil, for frying
• 675g /1 1/2 lb white bread flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 350ml /12 fl oz  lukewarm water
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 175g /6 oz pitted black olives, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp fresh marjoram and/or oregano, roughly chopped
• extra flour for dusting

Directions

1. Add the olive oil to a skillet and saute over medium heat until soft and beginning caramelize. Set aside.
2. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer and stir together. Add the yeast, water and olive oil and knead on medium for about 8-10 minutes, until you have a soft, smooth dough.
3. Towards the end of the kneading, add in the olives, onion and herb and knead until incorporated.
4. Turn the dough into a large oiled bowl, cover and let rest in a warm place for about 1 hour or until doubled.
5. Lightly flour a work surface, turn the dough out and knead a few times. to de-gas.
6. Cut the dough in two and shape into ovals. (Or make one VERY large loaf.) Place each loaf on a baking sheet lined with parchment, cover and let rest until doubled.
7. While the loaves are resting, preheat the oven to 425°F. If using a covered baker, preheat according to directions.
8. When the loaves are ready to bake, sprinkle with flour and slash 3 or 4 times, about 1/2″ deep.
9. Bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown. The loaves should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
10. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 2 medium size loaves or 1 ginormo loaf

Notes (Lots of ’em)

I used kalamata olives and kalamata olive oil (from Trader Joe’s).

As I mentioned, I made this three times, varying the method each time. The original recipe calls for adding the olives, herbs and onion AFTER the first rise. Rolling out the dough, topping it with the olive mixture, rolling it up and kneading it in. This created a giant squishy mess that never really came together for me so I just scraped it up in a sort of round. It was blobbing all over the place and ended up rather flat after baking (on a baking stone) but still tasted great.

For the second go-round, I added the olive mix towards the end of the kneading process, as I’ve noted above. It still squished but came together much better. I proofed the loaf on a baking sheet then baked in a La Cloche to contain it. It definitely kept it’s shape better than my first loaf and still tasted great.

For the third pass, I added the olive mix at the beginning of the kneading process, hoping that the Bread Police wouldn’t arrest me for gluten mangling. I used a large plastic banneton for the second rise and baked it in the La Cloche again. It kept a beautiful shape and had great oven spring, giving me a big giant dome of a bread. Unfortunately, mixing in the olives and onions at the beginning made them become one with the dough so the resulting loaf, as you can see in the photos, was kind of a uniform gray. Very pretty on the outside, not so much on the inside. Bad timing, bad lighting and two disappeared loaves meant I was only able to photograph this last one so I can’t show you the beautiful marbling and chunky olives I got with Loaf 2.

Conclusion: Next time–and there will be a next time, plenty of ’em, in fact–I’ll add the olive mix towards the end of the knead for nice marbling and keeping the integrity of the rough-chopped olives (Loaf 2), proof the loaf in the plastic banneton to create a nice shape (Loaf 3), and bake in the La Cloche (2 & 3)

Seedy:

1. inferior in condition or quality, shabby, run-down. Definitely not.
2. somewhat disreputable.  Don’t think so.
3. slightly unwell, debilitated. Nuh uh.
4. containing or full of seeds. Oh yeah, baby! Especially if that thing containing or full of seeds is a bread.

Seeds is (are?) the theme for this month’s BreadBakers challenge, chosen by our host Karen of Karen’s Kitchen Stories. Last month’s Montreal Bagels not with standing, they’re not an ingredient I use often. I tend to approach seeds with a bit of trepidation because many of them, mostly the larger ones, veer much too close to nut territory for my liking (my disdain for all things nut is legendary and I’ve pretty much made whining about them into an art form). I’m okay with the smaller seeds though, the teensier the better, which brought me to this bread–a crunchy seed braid that’s about as seedy as you can get. It’s loaded with ’em, itty bitty ones, inside and out.

Confession Time: This braid wasn’t my first effort. I originally planned to make this mixed seed bread from BBC Good Food. It might have been a good one too, but for one teeny tiny but very important error in the published recipe–a missing space. As I found out too late, you don’t add a 125 gram packet of sunflower seeds to the mix. Nope, it should read 1 25 gram packet. That’s ONE 25 gram packet. See the difference that missing space makes, BBC? 25 grams of sunflower seeds will get you a nice seedy loaf of bread. ONE HUNDRED and 25 grams of sunflower seeds will get you an inedible lump with the density of a curling stone. Seriously, in a pinch it would be a great stand-in. Even the birds wouldn’t eat it. They literally flipped me the bird (groan) and left it to rot in the snow. SO FIX THAT MISSING SPACE, BBC, OKAY? Thanks much.

The dough for this bread, however, is VERY easy to work with and the resulting braid is a hearty, flavorful, (dare I say) nutty, crunchy, seedy extravaganza that holds up to just about anything you pair it with. (Did someone say cheese?) Definitely one to try.

Be sure to check out what the other BreadBakers came up with this month!

crunchy seed braid

Ingredients

• 283g lukewarm water
• 35g vegetable oil
• 241g unbleached bread flour
• 170g whole wheat flour, preferably white wheat
• 85g Harvest Grains Blend
• 43g traditional rolled oats
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 25g sugar
• 28g nonfat dry milk
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• seed mix for coating the braid
• 1 egg white mixed with 1 tbsp water for brushing

Directions

1. Place all ingredients except for the seed mix coating in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on medium speed for approximately 8 minutes. The dough should be soft and smooth.
2. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, then cover and let rise in a warm spot for about 60–90 minutes until the dough is puffy (it may not double).
3. Transfer the dough to a work surface, gently deflate then divide into three pieces. Roll and stretch each piece into a 16″ rope.
4. Dampen a lint-free kitchen towel and place it on a sheet pan. Add your seed mix coating to another sheet pan. Gently roll each dough rope in the damp towel, then transfer it to the sheet pan with the seeds and roll the rope in the seeds until it’s fully covered. Transfer the coated rope to your work surface and roll gently to make sure the seeds adhere. Repeat with the remaining ropes then let them rest uncovered for about 15 minutes.
5. Just before braiding, lightly spritz the ropes with water, then pinch the three ropes on one one end together and braid. Pinch the remaining ends together, then tuck each end underneath the braid.
6. Place the braid on a parchment lined sheet pan, lightly brush with the egg white mixture, then cover and place in a warm spot to rise for about 1 hour.
7. While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake the bread for about 30-40 minutes or until the braid is golden brown (tent the braid with foil if it looks like it’s browning too quickly) and the internal temperature is 190°F.
8. Cool on a wire rack.

Notes

This recipe calls for King Arthur’s Harvest Grains mix, which I happened to have on hand. If you don’t, it’s basically a blend of whole oat berries, millet, rye and wheat flakes, flax, poppy, sesame, and midget sunflower seeds. Really though, you can pretty much substitute whatever grains and seeds you like, measure for measure.

This dough is so workable that I didn’t have to flour my work surface at all, always nice since I tend to make a big mess with my flour.

My seed coating was a total mishmash of whatever I had on hand. I used: flax, black and white poppy, black and natural sesame, caraway, lucknow fennel, anise and nigella. Phew. It was a VERY tasty mix, no one seed was overpowering.

The wet towel trick is one I learned in my artisanal bread course at the International Culinary Center. Works every time, great coverage and gosh darn it, those seeds really STICK.

The original recipe says to stretch the dough into 24″ ropes but I thought this made for a somewhat wimpy braid, too long and thin. When I made it the second time, I stretched the ropes to about 16″ and it made for a much more pleasingly plump braid.

I found the recommended oven temp in the original recipe (425° to start, lowered to 350°) to be a bit much and kind of a pain. Even with tenting, my first braid was way too brown and a little dry. 400° seemed to work much better and I just kept an eye on things and checked the internal temp to make sure it didn’t overbake. Temp was more reliable than time in this case but there’s a bit of trial and error here. (I also think my oven’s been running a bit hot lately, even though I check the temp with a standalone thermometer.)

And the theme for this month’s Twelve Loaves challenge is…Summer Herbs! I batted around a few ideas–all of them involving rosemary because that’s pretty much the only thing that’s survived this year’s pathetic attempt at a garden–and finally decided on a crispity, crunchity flatbread. Because who doesn’t love a good flatbread? Especially one that’s full of savory goodness and rustic to boot. (Rustic being code for “kind of messy.” But intentionally so. I love rustic like I love wearing linen. Yes, you–or the flatbread–may look like a mess but if people dare to criticize, you shoot them a sideways glance that just oozes contempt and say “I KNOW, it’s RUSTIC [or LINEN]. It’s SUPPOSED to look that way.” And then you roll your eyes and wonder how some people can be so ignorant and live. Yeah, rustic is GOOD. A lot of things in my life are rustic. That’s all I’m sayin’…

I made these flatbreads first a long time ago, before I got the rolling thing down, especially with the French rolling pin, so my initial attempts weren’t exactly flat or crispy (they were REALLY rustic), but I’ve come a long way towards perfecting my technique so I thought I’d give them another go. They really couldn’t be easier. In fact, the hardest part of this recipe was not snarfing them all down before I could photograph them. And I ended up making them twice anyway, because they “mysteriously” disappeared. They’re that easy and that good. And did I mention quick? It took longer for my cranky oven to come up to heat than it did to mix the dough, roll it out and bake up the breads.

The original recipe from Smitten Kitchen via Gourmet Magazine didn’t include parmesan, which I added on a whim. And honestly, as good as the original is, with parmesan? These babies go to 11. As does the white bean and rosemary spread I made to go along with it (you’ve got to have SOMEthing to go with a crisp, right?) Normally, since I’d need my own zip code if I ate everything I baked, I bring the majority of my culinary efforts to work to share with the guys. But the crisps and spread are so good, I may be a selfish little piggy this time and keep it all to myself.

P.S. I did share.

rosemary parmesan flatbread crisps

Ingredients

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp rosemary, finely chopped plus extra sprigs for sprinkling on top of the breads
• 1/3-1/2 cup grated parmesan (I used parmigiano reggiano)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup olive oil, plus extra for brushing on top of the breads
• sea salt flakes (I use Maldon)

Directions

1. Place a baking stone or heavy baking sheet (on the middle rack) in your oven and preheat to 450°
2. In a medium bowl, add flour, 1 tablespoon rosemary, 2 tablespoons of the cheese, baking powder and salt and stir to combine. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in water and olive. Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.
3. Turn dough out onto a pastry board or other work surface and gently knead a few times to make sure all ingredients are incorporated.
4. Divide into three pieces. Working with one piece at a time (keep the remaining pieces covered with plastic), place dough on parchment* and roll until thin.
5. Brush the dough lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, rosemary leaves and parmesan cheese and pat lightly. **
6. Slide each flatbread onto the baking stone or sheet and bake for 8–10 minutes*** or until it’s nice and golden with some browned spots. Remove from oven, discard parchment and cool on a wire rack. Break into pieces when completely cooled (it doesn’t take long which is a good thing!)

notes

* I always had trouble with my dough when something needed to be rolled out on parchment. Either the dough kept snapping back–even when I let it relax–or it curled and wrinkled the parchment, or both, and I ended up fighting the dough (the dough won), never getting it as thin as it should have been since it would become one with the parchment in a giant crinkle. I finally tried rolling out the dough on my wooden pastry board first–parchment-less–to give it a head start, then put a piece of parchment on top and rolled it some more, then flipped it over so the original parchment was on the bottom and put another piece on top and rolled it even more, the removed the top parchment and gently rolled the dough to its final thickness…or thinness. A little confusing, no? And parchment intensive (although I recycle it). My technique may not pass muster in culinary school but it works for me!

** I placed a sheet of parchment on top and gave it one light roll. Nothing fell off after baking. Win!

*** Baking time will depend on how thin you roll your dough. Since mine was quite thin it only took  6–7 minutes to bake.

SING WITH ME! They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky. They’re altogether ooky…the, uh…breads that you bake with bamboo charcoal powder!

Okay, so it kind of loses something here but you get where I’m going, right? Because what could be more ooky and spooky than black bread? And I mean BLACK bread. Definitely the kind of bread you’d break with the Addams Family. And just in time for Halloween.

I was Googling black bread–as in the Russian kind–a couple of weeks ago (because apparently the 50+ bread books I have would have failed me) when the search results returned a few images of some seriously BLACK black bread. And immediately, I thought “How cool is THAT?!?” (very) then “How did they DO that?!?” And the answer is…Bamboo Charcoal Powder. Now I’ll admit that it sounds really icky to be adding powdered charcoal into stuff you eat–not to mention that I had visions of having my mouth and tongue turn weird colors like they do when you eat blue ices–but everything I read said that the charcoal is pretty much tasteless. Apparently it has health benefits too but my typical reaction to that is basically, “Big whoop.” Not that I’m not health conscious because I am—sort of—but BLACK BREAD! I think if you told me it was made with nuclear waste my reaction still would have been “Cool! I want some!”

Of course, I turned to Amazon for this mysterious ingredient, like I do for just about everything, and they did not disappoint. There it was, a few days later, enough bamboo charcoal powder to sink a ship. I’d better bake a LOT of black stuff. (I’m begging you, people, do NOT tell me bad things about Amazon because if you do, I’m just going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing “la la la, I can’t HEAR YOU!” I try very hard to buy ethically but if I have to give up Amazon for the greater good of mankind I’m going to be very cranky. VERY cranky.)

Since the powder can be added to just about anything, I chose a bread–Overnight White Bread–from one of my favorite sources: Ken Forkish’s Flour Water Salt Yeast. Other than the bamboo charcoal powder being a little, um…powdery so that you’re working in a bit of a black cloud, there was little deviation from the standard recipe. Admittedly, the looks take some getting used to since the raw dough starts out as an unappetizing dead gray but by the next day it had darkened considerably and I had a pillowy, bubbly blob of black ooze, a little La Brea Tar Pit right there in my kitchen. My only regret is that I didn’t have something black to dust my proofing baskets with but I actually ended up really liking the effect of the white flour against the black, black bread. And I was also kind of amused by the end result, since Ken (we’re on a first-name basis here) recommends baking your bread until the crust is super dark. All I kept thinking when I pulled my black bread out of the oven was “Dark enough for ya, Ken?”

Of course, since Halloween is all about black and orange, I had to have something suitable to go with, right? I originally thought I’d throw some turmeric into my standard hummus, but really, what’s more orange than…CARROTS! So I whipped up a batch of roasted carrot hummus which looked awesome against the black (and tasted fab too). And truth be told, you kind of need something to go with these black foods. Because those claims about the bamboo charcoal powder being TOTALLY tasteless? Not quite accurate. While the powder doesn’t significantly alter the taste of whatever you add it to, there is a very slight, teensy weensy discernible…bitterness? Smokiness? Definitely a SOMETHING–not off-putting or offensive, mind you–just different, so a spread of some sort will help distract you from puzzling over it too much. The hummus, with its lemony, garlicy, spicy flavors, did the trick.

I’m a hummus junkie. I’ve been eating it and making it since the dawn of creation or at least my college days (cough1972cough)–in any event, way before it was as ubiquitous as it is now. But as long as I’ve been making it, I’ve never, ever used a recipe–it’s an adventure every time. And so it was with the carrot hummus, although in the interests of having something to post about it other than “throw a bunch of stuff in the blender and smoosh it up” I actually wrote down what I did. (This, for me, is one of the toughest parts of blogging, since I’m a wing-it type of cook. I’ll make something that’s really good, think about sharing it and then realize that I haven’t paid a speck of attention to what I did. Stream-of-consciousness cooking and food blogging are not a match made in heaven. I’m working on it.) Hummus is one of those things, though, that’s fun to play around with so my recipe is really just a jumping-off point.

Novelty aside, in the end, good bread is good bread and this was good bread (and hummus). Unless I enter into a late-life goth phase, though, I don’t think that black food is something I’ll be making every day–although I’m already thinking about what else I can add my bamboo powder to (pasta? cookies? soup? oatmeal?)–but should Uncle Fester ever ring me up to say he’s dropping by with Morticia and Gomez, I’m definitely set. Happy Halloween!

black bread

Ingredients

• 1000g all purpose flour
• 3-4 tbsp bamboo charcoal powder
• 780g water (90–95°F)
• 22g fine sea salt
• .8g (scant 1/4 tsp) instant dry yeas
• 1. In a very large bowl or 12 qt. Cmbro, mix the bamboo charcoal powder thoroughly into the flour. Add the water to the flour and mix by hand until incorporated. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
  2. Add the yeast and the salt, sprinkling it over the dough evenly, then pull the dough over the top from all four sides to completely enclose the salt and yeast.
  3. Mix the dough by hand using the pincer/fold method (great video instructions here) until fully integrated. You can wet your hand as needed to keep it from sticking to the dough. When fully mixed, cover the dough and let it rise.
  4. Stretch and fold the dough two to three times, preferably during the first 1 1/2 hours of the rise (videos here again!). After completing the folds, cover the dough and let it rise overnight (12–14 hours after mixing) at room temperature. The dough should be 2 1/2–3 times its original size.
  5. Sprinkle flour around the edges of the dough. Flour your hands and remove the dough from the container/bowl to a floured surface. Divide the dough in half (check these videos).
  6. Shape each half into a fairly tight ball, then place each ball into a floured proofing basket, seam side down, and wrap each basket in a plastic bag. Let the loaves rest for about 1 1/4 hours.
  7. At least 45 minutes before you plan to bake, move an oven rack to the middle position, place two Dutch ovens on the rack and preheat the oven to 475°F.
  8. Gently turn each loaf out of its proofing basket onto a floured surface, then take out the heated Dutch ovens one at a time and remove the lid. CAREFULLY place each loaf into a Dutch oven, seam side up, cover and return to the oven.
  9. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes, then remove the covers and bake for 20–30 minutes more.
  10. Remove the Dutch ovens and tip the loaves out onto a cooling rack. Let the loaves cool for about 20 minutes before slicing.

   

  roasted carrot hummus

  Ingredients

  • 1 lb. carrots
  • 5–6 tbsp olive oil (in total)
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground (or 1 tsp ground cumin)
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground (or 1 tsp ground coriander)
  • 3–4 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
  • sea salt
  • black pepper
  • 2–3 lemons (or to taste–I like a lot of lemon)
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1/2 cup canned chickpeas
  • 1. In a very large bowl or 12 qt. Cambro, mix the bamboo charcoal powder thoroughly into the flour. Add the water to the flour and mix by hand until incorporated. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
    2. Add the yeast and the salt, sprinkling it over the dough evenly, then pull the dough over the top from all four sides to completely enclose the salt and yeast.
    3. Mix the dough by hand using the pincer/fold method (great video instructions here) until fully integrated. You can wet your hand as needed to keep it from sticking to the dough. When fully mixed, cover the dough and let it rise.
    4. Stretch and fold the dough two to three times, preferably during the first 1 1/2 hours of the rise (videos here again!). After completing the folds, cover the dough and let it rise overnight (12–14 hours after mixing) at room temperature. The dough should be 2 1/2–3 times its original size.
    5. Sprinkle flour around the edges of the dough. Flour your hands and remove the dough from the container/bowl to a floured surface. Divide the dough in half (check these videos).
    6. Shape each half into a fairly tight ball, then place each ball into a floured proofing basket, seam side down, and wrap each basket in a plastic bag. Let the loaves rest for about 1 1/4 hours.
    7. At least 45 minutes before you plan to bake, move an oven rack to the middle position, place two Dutch ovens on the rack and preheat the oven to 475°F.
    8. Gently turn each loaf out of its proofing basket onto a floured surface, then take out the heated Dutch ovens one at a time and remove the lid. CAREFULLY place each loaf into a Dutch oven, seam side up, cover and return to the oven.
    9. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes, then remove the covers and bake for 20–30 minutes more.
    10. Remove the Dutch ovens and tip the loaves out onto a cooling rack. Let the loaves cool for about 20 minutes before slicing.

     

    roasted carrot hummus

    Ingredients

    • 1 lb. carrots
    • 5–6 tbsp olive oil (in total)
    • 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground (or 1 tsp ground cumin)
    • 1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground (or 1 tsp ground coriander)
    • 3–4 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
    • sea salt
    • black pepper
    • 2–3 lemons (or to taste–I like a lot of lemon)
    • 1/4 cup tahini
    • 1/2 cup canned chickpeas

    Directions

    1. Preheat your oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment.
    2. Trim and scrub carrots (or peel if preferred) and cut into 1/2″ thick slices. (If you use large carrots, you may want to cut the carrot circles in half.) Spread the carrots over the prepared baking sheet, drizzle with 3–4 tbsp of the oil, the toasted spices, and garlic and toss to coat. Sprinkle with sea salt (flaky if you’ve got it) and freshly ground pepper to taste and toss again.
    3. Roast the carrots until they’re soft and browned, about 30 minutes.
    4. Place the carrots and any browned bits and juices in a blender or food processor, add the lemon juice, chickpeas and tahini and process while adding the remaining oil. Scrape down as needed and continue to process until the hummus is as smooth as you like. You may want to add more lemon juice, oil or tahini to suit your tastes and to achieve your preferred consistency. Transfer to a container, drizzle with a little oil, cover and keep refrigerated.