Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Olive bread


This was another loaf with disastrous beginnings.  I used some vegetable smoothie (carrot, garlic, beet green, red pepper, celery, lemon, cucumber, quinoa, green tea) as part of the liquid in the sponge.  In the dough, I added kalamata and green olives.  

I rolled the dough out into a lovely, perfect rectangle, sprinkled it with the olive chunks, rolled into a tidy bundle, and put in into a warm oven for its second rising.  

In my haste to create a delicious loaf, I forgot that this was actually only the first rise.  And I forgot about my oven ooze from just a couple days before.  So once again, I woke up to a bread dough mess, but this one was much worse since the dough worked its way out of the pan and all over the racks and element.  

Though it was a mess, I thought I should try to save the dough, so I scooped what was left from the pan, kneaded, and put it back in the cast iron loaf pan to rise at room temperature while I was at work.

I threw it in the oven when I got home, still dubious that it would turn out.  Amazingly, it made bread!  And it tasted a little like pizza! 

Back in the bread!

I am back in the bread habit.  I took a little break so I could shrink back into my pants and started keeping my starter in the refrigerator so I don't have to feed it everyday.

Here is a loaf I made that I thought wouldn't make it but turned out to be one of my all-time favorites.  I used potato water as the liquid and a warm oven for rising.  For the second rising, I put the dough in a 4.5 quart dutch oven and left it overnight.  In the morning, I woke up to a huge, sticky mess that completely filled the oven and adhered to the lid.

I pulled the lid off, sliced the top, threw it all in a hot hot oven, and expected a deflated mess.  To my surprise, the bread stayed tall and the crumb was very open - much closer to my goal of huge holes!

And it was GOOOODD!