Black olive bread with a sourdough starter, baked on a baking stone using the fridge-to-oven method, just as good as the semolina bread with sun-dried tomatoes.
In my family the Sicilian bread with black olives and sourdough is a sweet memory — my grandmother used to make it every time she baked bread — and this is one of the homemade bread recipes I love the most. Black olive bread is a traditional Sicilian recipe and has been made for ages, especially on large farms where bread was baked once a week: it was a tasty, humble dish perfect for farmers and shepherds to take with them during long working hours.
My semolina black olive bread recipe may seem a little complicated, partly because the slightly high hydration gives an often slack dough that’s more challenging to work with, but with a bit of patience you’ll get a crunchy, fragrant loaf like in the old days — give it a try! In addition, the cold fermentation in the fridge will give the finished product good open crumb and outstanding flavor. Ready to run to the kitchen? Let’s go — but first, if you want to keep up with all my recipes you can follow my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here).
Do you like making bread at home? Also check out:
Mafalde Siciliane with re-milled semolina;
–Cucciddatu with re-milled durum semolina;
–Super soft milk rolls;
–Sturdy semolina bread with sourdough starter;
–High-hydration semolina walnut bread with sourdough;
–Semolina bread with sun-dried tomatoes.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Affordable
- Preparation time: 16 Hours
- Portions: about 2.65 lb (1.2 kg) of bread
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients to make semolina bread with black olives
- 21 oz (about 3 5/8 cups) re-milled durum wheat semolina
- 3.5 oz sourdough starter
- 2 cups water
- 2 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 teaspoon malt (or honey)
- 5.3 oz (about 1 cup) pitted black olives
Tools
- Bowl
How to make black olive bread
Pour the flour into a bowl and add 300 g (about 1 1/4 cups) of the water, mix roughly and set aside to autolyse (autolysis helps form a good gluten network and is useful for very hydrated doughs). Refresh your sourdough starter and wait for it to mature, which will take about 3 hours at around 75°F; place it in a warm oven with the light on. As soon as the starter is ready, take back the flour you left to autolyse and add the remaining water, the starter, the salt and the malt.
Mix again roughly and let rest for half an hour. After that time, turn the dough out onto the work surface and work it by folding the edges toward the center and shaping (pirlare); repeat this operation twice at ten-minute intervals. Wait another ten minutes, then spread out the dough and scatter the pitted black olives over it.
Roll the dough onto itself,
flour the work surface and shape into a bâtard (oval loaf). Place the loaf in a proofing basket and put it in a warm oven with the light on for at least an hour so the dough starts to rise again. After that hour transfer the basket to the fridge and wait for it to proof; my dough took about 12 hours.
Once doubled, preheat the oven to its highest temperature, place a baking stone or a roasting pan in the middle and let it heat for at least 30 minutes.
Turn the bread out onto a floured tray or peel.
With a razor blade make deep slashes as you like (this prevents unsightly cracks during baking) and gently slide the loaf onto the hot baking stone.
(From the moment you turn the loaf onto the peel to the moment you put it in the oven you must be very quick to avoid it flattening too much).
Bake preferably with convection at the highest temperature for the first 40 minutes, then reduce the temperature gradually for the next 15–20 minutes.
When the time is up, take the bread out with an oven mitt and tap the bottom: if it sounds hollow, turn off the oven, put the loaf back inside and let it cool slowly with the oven slightly ajar.
