Olive Oil Bread

Photo: flickr user stu_spivack

Ingredients

1 pkt active dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons virgin olive oil

1 pch sugar

2 1/2 cups white flour or mixed whole

wheat and white

coarse sea salt

Preparation

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with the salt, olive oil, and sugar. Stir in the flour in 2 or 3 additions. Once a dough has formed, turn it out onto a board dusted with flour and knead it for several minutes, adding only enough flour to prevent the dough from sticking. When the dough is smooth and shiny, place it in a lightly oiled bowl, turning it upside down to make sure the top is oiled. Put it in a warm place to rise, until it is doubled in size, about 30-40 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto the counter and form into shapes with a rolling pin either 1 large or 2 small loaves, about 1/2 an inch thick. Make several cuts in the top of the dough, in the center of the oval. Parallel or fan-shaped cuts, or many little diagonal slices. Then, pull the edges of the dough apart, opening the cuts to give the loaf a latticed appearance. If you are going to bake the bread on a pizza stone, transfer the loaf to a well floured peel. Otherwise, put it on a well oiled baking sheet. Brush the bread with

Heat the oven to 450F and if using a pizza stone, warm it for 20 minutes.

After it has risen, slide it onto the pizza stone, or put the baking sheet in the oven. Bake in the top third of the oven, for 20-30 minutes, or until the bread is nicely browned. You can spray the bread and oven with a fine mist of water 2 or 3 times during the first 10 minutes of cooking to help give the bread a good crust. Serve hot from the oven, with or without butter.

Variations

Olive oil bread with green olives: Use about 2 dozen green nicoise olives.

After the dough has been rolled out into an oval, place it on a baking sheet or floured pizza peel. Use your fingertips to make firm indentations in the surface of the dough and place an olive in each indentation. Brush with olive oil and let it rise for 20 minutes, then bake according to the recipe. Instead of the olives, press chopped onion or rosemary or sage leaves into the surface before letting it rise.

We always make this bread for weekend dinners, varying it with additions of rosemary or sage leaves, olives, onions, and coarse sea salt. a flattish bread with toppings, it is almost like a very simple pizza. The dough tender and fragrant with olive oil is a pleasure to make. It is easy to handle and requires only one rise, making it fairly quick to prepare for lunch or dinner.

Olive oil bread can be shaped in a variety of different ways, usually we roll the dough into an oval, make a number of decorative cuts, then pull the edges of the dough to open the cuts to reveal a pattern. The dough can also be left uncut, covered with onions or studded with green olives. If you have a pizza stone, bake the bread right on it for a lovely toasty crust.