Recipes from Spain

Hello,

Finally I succumbed to the temptation of making bread and I bring one possible recipe to you. Bread world is very wide and you can cook near an infinity variety of breads. I just propose one choice easy to prepare and with the nice flavor of the olives.

Ingredients (for 2 breads):

• 1 kg flour
• Baker’s yeast (5 gr of dry, or 15-20 gr of fresh)
• 100 gr olives (I chose greek olives)
• 15-20 gr salt
• 550 gr warm water

With the quantities shown on this recipe you have enough to bake 2 pieces of bread.

Add 1 kg of flour in a bowl, 5 gr of dry baker’s yeast (about 15 if baker’s yeast is fresh) and about 100 gr of olives without the bone. Add 15-20 gr of salt and mix again. Finally add 550 gr of warm water.

Now mix well on the bowl and then knead the dough on a clean surface. With the proportion of water on this recipe you don’t need any particular kneading technic, just strecht the dough, fold it, stretch and so go on for some minutes until the texture of dough becomes smooth.

Cut the dough in 2, give them a final knead to make them round, add them on a bowl with a bit of flour, cover them with transparent film and let rest at least one day.

Next day, just knead a bit each of the dough balls  and give tension to them folding the ends to the center and finally shape the dough. Once you shaped the dough let them rest for about 2 hours, it would be nice if they are placed over a linen cloth and also cover with a cloth. You can place some objects at their side to avoid the dough spread widely.

Before turning on the oven, put a tray with water on it, this will generate steam which is good for getting more breadcrust, set the oven to 430 ºF (220ºC). When oven reach the temperature make an incision on the bread near end to end, and bake for 20 minutes. If your incision is not big enough you will see how your bread breaks on other sides.

After 20 minutes, remove the tray with water, reduce the temperature to 390 F (200 ºC) and bake for 35 minutes more. Once baked wait until the bread gets ambient temperature before eating it.

Music played in the video (Airport Lounge) was composed by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), also he is the owner of song’s rights which are released under a CC-BY license.