Hearty Tomato and Olive Bread
By: Chris Manteria
Published: Friday, June 22, 2012 - 11:33am

Ingredients




1 cup boiling water
20 sun-dried tomato halves, packed without oil
10 kalamata olives - diced
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray

Preparation

1 Combine the tomatoes with boiling water. 2 Cover and let steap for 30 minutes. 3 Strain the tomatoes reserving the liquid. Dice the tomatoes and set aside. 4 Heat the reserved "tomato" liquid to between 100 and 110 degrees. Pour yeast over top and stir to combine. If you are not using instant yeast you will need to let stand for 5 minutes. 5 Add 3 cups flour, chopped tomatoes, olives, oil, salt and egg. 6 Mix until a soft dough forms. 7 Switch out the paddle for a dough hook. Start out on a low speed and add flour a tablespoon at a time. Increase the speed to medium and keep letting the hook work the dough while adding flour until the dough is smooth and elastic, approximately 8 minutes. 8 Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover with a warm damp towel and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 45 minutes or until doubled in size. 9 Punch down the dough and form into a rectangular loaf, roughly 8"x14". You can also roll this out, fold it into a rectangle and place into a greased loaf pan. I chose to cook this on my pizza stone. 10 Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 11 Cover and let rise until doubled in size. 12 Bake for approximately 40 minutes until the loaf is brown and sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom. Let rest on a wire rack until cool. 13 Slice and serve. Use for sandwiches, dipping into soups and stews or just with an olive tappenade.

About

A good friend of mine stopped by the other day while I was making pizza dough. "What's in bread?" he asked me. I was amazed. He's a highly intelligent highly successful individual who is inquisitive about how things are made in general and he didn't know where this basic staple of most people's diets comes from. Bread is easy to make, less expensive than buying it in a bakery or supermarket and tastes absolutely amazing with just a few ingredients. The types of bread you can make are almost endless and you can let your imagination run wild. It is a bit time consuming but much of that time is about waiting not actively working the bread.