No-knead sourdough bread with olives

I am not brand new to bread-baking but I admit I have a lot to learn in the journey of baking: it’s a matter of love, patience, dedication.

As I adore olive bread and I love experimenting, I wanted to try an old bread formula I had in my recipe journal changing some ingredients: this sourdough bread has 40% whole grain flour (20% rye flour and 20% organic whole grain stone ground flour) and 80% hydration.
The result was just what I was looking for, which means at least I could feed not only my body but also my self-esteem, getting much satisfaction from it, as it often happens when you’re working with sourdough: you definitely cannot be in a hurry and you must be willing to wait patiently to see the result of your dedication.

This bread recipe is quite easy to make even if you are an absolute beginner, in fact, I chose a no-knead formula just adding the olives with the laminating technique, at the end of overnight room temperature bulk fermentation (the dough has to rest 12 hours at about 20 degrees).

It only requires much patience but the result will pay you back: you’ll be deliriously happy to taste it. It is perfectly crunchy and golden outside, and soft, moist and scrumptious inside. Plus, the salty flavor of green olives will delight you with a perfect match.
While you bake it I can assure you your home will smell like the most fascinating and traditional French bakery, and your senses will be healed by it.

As usual, I am writing this recipe adding also baker’s percentage, where each ingredient in the formula is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, and the flour weight is always expressed as 100% (see numbers between square brackets near each ingredient).
Have a look at this link of King Arthur flours to get the basics of baker’s percentage.
As for the shaping techniques throughout the recipe, you can refer to The Perfect Loaf which, by the way, contains many useful guidelines for both beginners and experienced home bakers, and is one of my favorite references for home baking.

Here is what you need:

• 300 gr of white bread flour with at least 12% proteins [60%]
• 100 gr of whole grain rye flour [20%]
• 100 gr of whole grain flour [20%]
• 400 ml of water [80%]
• 90 gr of sourdough starter [18%]
• 10 gr of salt [2%]

How to do:

• Feed your sourdough starter and allow it to become fully active and ready to use.
• Whisk together the flours, add the water and the sourdough starter, and stir everything together until no flour streaks remain.  The dough will look quite soft.
• At this point add salt and stir a little bit more.
• Put the dough in an air-tight plastic container that you previously greased with some oil and put in a quiet corner of your house, to rest at room temperature (should be around 20 degrees, lower temperatures generally mean things will take longer, and higher temperatures generally mean it will take a shorter time). 
• Now do something else that you like….. your dough will continue its life alone till the next day….. I usually mix the dough in the evening so that I go to bed right after, and I can bake it the morning after serving it for the next day’s lunch.
• Next morning sprinkle your work surface with a little flour and directly dump the dough out on it. Gently press it to a rectangular shape and pull the outer edges up and press them into the center of the dough so that the dough feels a bit tighter and holds its shape. If it’s necessary just repeat it a couple of times, every 15 minutes. 
• After this, you can perform laminating.
  Laminating is done by stretching your dough on your counter to open it to a big rectangle, sprinkle the loosely chopped olives, and then folding it together.
• Now give the final shape, you can have a look here on The Perfect Loaf for the shaping technique I used (a batard).
  After shaping the dough, put it seam side up, to a prepared proofing basket (loaf pan with a kitchen cotton towel), lightly flour the top, cover it folding the towel and let it rest at room temperature for the final proofing, till it doubles its volume (for me it took about 2 hours). 
  I always use the same kitchen cotton towel: you don’t need to wash it every time, and when you wash it make sure you don’t use fabric softeners.
• In the meantime preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
• When the dough is ready transfer it to the hot oven pan, get your razor blade out, and score the top of the loaf to allow the bread to expand while rising in the oven. For bread scoring techniques check this article on Kingarthurbaking.com by Maurizio Leo.
• Turn down at 230 degrees and bake for about 15 min. After this time turn the heat down at 210 degrees and bake for an additional 25 minutes till golden brown. The final internal temperature should be about 97 degrees (you need a food thermometer to check it).
• Remove from the oven and transfer the bread to a wire cooling rack.
• Let it rest for at least one or two hours… if you can resist the temptation.

About the ingredients

For this recipe, I used organic stone ground flours by Zamorana but any brand would fit. Remember not to use tap water because of the usual big amount of chlorine inside.
As for the olives I used the green ones from Mallorca that are juicy, and have a great taste, with the right amount of salt. I am mad about olives so I think I will try this recipe with some other kind of olive.