Olive sticks are one of those delicious types of bread that you could eat at any time of the day. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, enriched with plenty of green olives, they are also loved by children.
In fact, I always prepare a lot and then freeze them, so I always have a snack ready to take to school in the morning. The best part is that for the preparation of these olive sticks, you don’t need a stand mixer, just a bowl and a wooden spoon. Easier than that…
For the preparation, I used ADAM sourdough flour and yeast from Molino Merano. The latter is a dried sourdough with added yeast, for soft, tasty, and digestible leavened products, without long rising times.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Rest time: 3 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 16
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour (Molino Merano)
- 1 oz ADAM sourdough yeast (Molino Merano)
- 1.6 cups water (warm)
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 5.3 oz green olives (pitted)
- as needed durum wheat semolina
Steps
To prepare the olive sticks, put the flour in a bowl together with the ADAM sourdough yeast and the warm water. Mix with a spoon or even with your hands. Add the salt and the extra virgin olive oil and continue kneading with a spoon or with your hands until you get a homogeneous, but rather sticky dough. At this point, add the drained green olives, briefly work the dough so that they are distributed inside, and let it rest covered for 30 minutes.
After the first 30 minutes of resting, make folds directly in the bowl. That is, take an edge of the dough with damp hands or a spatula, stretch it upwards and place it in the center of the dough, turn the bowl by 90 degrees and proceed in the same way. Continue until you complete the whole turn.
Cover the dough and let it rise for 90 minutes, making a round of folds every 30 minutes.
You should do 4 rounds of folds in total, and after the last one, let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.
Sprinkle the work surface with plenty of semolina and slide the dough onto it. Also, sprinkle the surface of the dough with semolina and by pulling the dough or pressing gently with your fingertips, form a rectangle of approx. 10 x 12 inches. Cut it in half lengthwise with a dough scraper or a sharp, floured knife, then cut each strip of dough into 8 sticks.
Transfer the sticks to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, slightly spaced from each other, and let them rise covered for another 30 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (static).
When the oven is hot, pour half a glass of water on the bottom to create steam and bake your olive sticks for approx. 20 minutes, until golden. Halfway through baking, open the oven to let out the steam.
Remove your olive sticks from the oven and let them cool.
Tip
Olive sticks can be frozen in a food bag.
