This homemade olive bread is close to a sourdough loaf in taste, yet doesn’t have the whole days-long sourdough starter process. Arm yourself with your trusty breadmaker appliance, set aside a weekend afternoon for baking, then get ready to feast on crunchy, delicious Italian-style bread in time for dinner. I’m even making freshly churned butter to go with it!
400g (14 oz) strong white flour, plus extra to dust
1¼ tsp instant dried yeast
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
150g (5 oz) olives, pitted, sliced
300ml (10 fl oz) tepid water
1 tsp sea salt flakes
Starter
1 tsp fast action dried yeast
100g (3.5 oz) strong white flour
80ml (2.75 fl oz) tepid water
Homemade butter
600ml (21 fl oz) pure cream
1 tsp sea salt
- For the butter, place the cream and salt into the basket of the bread maker. Close the lid of the bread maker and select the manual bread kneading function for 20 minutes.
- After this time, you will see the separation of butter solids and buttermilk. Pour out the buttermilk into a separate bowl (save this to use for pancakes or ricotta cake), then transfer the butter into a separate bowl of icy cold water. Part of the process of churning butter is to wash the butter after the separation has occurred to remove any excess milk solids. Using your hands, bring all the butter together, squeezing it occasionally to reduce the milky liquid and mould it into a ball shape. Transfer to a clean bowl of water and repeat process another 2 times. Line a 1-cup capacity mold with cling film and place washed butter inside. Wrap, then place tin into the fridge and refrigerate for 4 hours until firm. Clean the basket of the breadmaker thoroughly.
- For the starter, place the yeast, flour and water into the breadmaker tin. Close the lid then select the Bread Knead function for 5 minutes. Leave to rest for 4 hours.
- Now add the flour, yeast, olive oil, olives, water and salt into the tin with the rested starter. Close the lid and select the ‘basic loaf’ function. Let the machine do its work then, once complete, remove the finished loaf from the tin. Serve with homemade butter.
- Notes: – This recipe was made using the Panasonic SD-YR2550 Bread Maker . – The buttermilk you get from making the butter is great to use in my Lemon Ricotta Cake
