Today was another cold, grey,  wintery day and so I decided to try making olive bread again.  The last time I made it, a few weeks ago, was my very first attempt at making olive bread.  This time I used a different recipe from the Cooking Bread website.  So far, I actually do NOT like this recipe.   I am a novice at bread baking so I need very explicit, step-by-step directions.  While making the bread, I was not sure when to add certain things to the recipe.  For example, it calls for adding 1/4 cup of water with sugar and yeast.  This is to activate the yeast.  Then it says to add the yeast mixture to the bowl with the flour and then to add 1/2 cup of water.  But the recipe calls for 2 cups of water and never specifies when to add the rest of the water to the dough.  I ended up slowly adding the water after I had turned out the dough to begin kneading.  I also was not sure when to add the salt. And, adding the olives last made it hard to incorporate the olives into the dough.

Here were the ingredients I started with.

Ingredients

Here’s my yeast.  I put it in a bowl with warm water and some sugar to ensure it was active.  This is tricky since I had to be sure to use water that wasn’t too hot so I didn’t kill the yeast!

Yeast

Here’s my yeast bubbling away….

Yeast Bubbling

Here’s my flour as I mix the yeast mixture into it.

Mixing Dough

This is the dough when I turned it out.  It really did not have much moisture, so I slowly added more water as I kneaded it.

Turned Out Dough

After I kneaded, I then added the olives and then kneaded some more to incorporate them into the dough. I then set the dough in an oiled dish so that it can rise.

Olive Dough Before Rising

Here is the dough after rising.  I placed it on a floured pan so that it can rise again. Then, I put it in the oven.

After Rising

Here is the finished bread.

Fresh Olive Bread

I loved the golden crust.  It was very crunchy and had a great texture.

A Slice of Bread

Here’s a slice of fresh bread.  It had lots of olives, but it didn’t have great texture.  It wasn’t light or airy, but very heavy and even a bit mushy.  The flavors were also not evenly distributed.  I think if I had mixed the olives earlier it may have resulted in a better tasting bread.  I did eat it with my dinner that night but I do still think I can do better.  Next time, I’ll try using bread flour and mixing my olives in earlier.