Finally the weekend is here and I decided to dedicate it to R&R... well a bit of steemit time too.
One of the advantages of being on steemit, is that I can incorporate my baking into my blogs. I generally bake bread for people I know 4-5 times a week. I decided to bake my own bread here in Peru, cause quite frankly, the bread around where I live isn't very good. I initially baked for myself and then over the months, friends then random tourists came knocking to get some oven warm bread.
The bread recipe I am going to share here in this blog, is very popular and sometimes I can't make enough of it. I started making this type of bread when I found a grandpa type market seller of local honey. This guy has his own hives and recycles plastic bottles to sell his honey. When you eat the stuff it has an amazing smell of flowers and is delicious to boot. It clicked in my mind, why not add this to the bread?
I did exactly that.
To make this bread you will need the following:
- 1kg (2.2 lbs) of good quality wheat flour
- 600 ml of water
- Two soup spoons of dried yeast
- Good pinch of salt
- 10 pitted and diced black olives
- As much diced garlic as you can handle
- A generous serving of honey
- Dried rosemary powder (any herbs here will do)
Firstly I tend to prepare the garlic, olives, salt, herbs and honey in a separate bowl. In no particular order I put in a pinch or two of salt, herbs and the diced garlic.
Then comes that generous serving of honey.
In goes the pitted and diced black olives. These tend to be salty and you won't need as much extra added salt. Mix well.
In a separate bowl, add your 2.2 lbs (1kg) of flour. Now add the contents of the other bowl. The one with the garlic and olives in it.
Now pour in 600ml of water and two soup spoons of dried yeast. Start stirring with a wooden spoon.
Stir some more. You will notice the dough is getting harder to mix with a wooden spoon.
At one point you will have to get your hands in the bowl and continue mixing/folding by hand. Do this until you do not see any dry flour in the bowl or in the dough. This usually takes about 5 minutes of folding.
Cover your bowl with a damp tea towel and let it rest for at least 45 minutes.
Your dough ball should be at least double the size. If it is sticky, then wet your hands and this will make so much easier to handle. The dough won't stick to your fingers and hands.
Take an edge of the dough and pull it out. It will be remarkably stretchy by now. Fold over clock or counter clockwise from the edge. Do this until the dough isn't as stretchy and you are finding it hard to pull out. When you have reached this point.
Place the dough back into the bowl and cover it. Let it rise for another 45 minutes.
The dough ball should be huge by now and all puffed up. Time to prepare it for the baking tray.
I cut 300 gram (10.6 oz) pieces of dough to work with.
With a cut piece of dough, fold over from the edges until you can't really.
Shape the folded dough into a sphere and place on the floured baking tray. The front three breads below are the olive and honey, the smaller ones behind are hamburger buns. I left the dough to proof for about two hours before I put them in the oven.
Preheat your oven 420 F or 220 C. I glaze my bread with milk just before baking. It turns the bread into a beautiful golden colour. Bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, carefully pull out your baking tray and place somewhere to cool off.
After 30 minutes of cooling, this little beauty is ready to be enjoyed.