This weeks bread is another variation of the Tartine County Sourdough Loaf with black olives and fresh rosemary added. This is the first time time I have made this combination.
I wanted to use salt cured olives packed in olive oil. The only place we could find them locally was the olive bar at Wegmans, so that’s what I used. The fresh rosemary also came from Wegmans.
When developing a new recipe there is a guessing game on how much to use for each add in. In this case I guessed 3/4 cup of chopped olives and 1-1/2 teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary. When I chopped and measured the fresh rosemary it didn’t like enough rosemary so I used 2 teaspoons (4 grams). The 3/4 cup of olives (120 grams) was too much and I could only get 96 grams worked into the dough. The next time I make this loaf I will use 1/2 cup or 80 grams.
The recipe and process for this bread is pretty much the same as the smoked cheddar cheese and jalapeño add-ins. The one change I made to the process is to add the olives and rosemary 15 minutes after the first stretch and fold. In the earlier loaf I added the cheese and jalapeños when the salt and remaining water were added. My reasoning was I wanted the salt to have a chance to dissolve and absorb into the dough before I added the salty olives.
This loaf turned out delicious, but not the most attractive loaf I have made. In retrospect, I probably should have spread out the chopped olives on paper towels to absorb some of the oil and dusted them with flour before adding them to the dough. I had an issue when stretching and folding the dough with olives falling out because the dough didn’t stick to them. The same happened as the bread rose in the oven. When we sliced the loaf many of the olives were loose in pockets inside the loaf.
I will make this loaf again with the changes I’ve noted above. I may try to get the 120 grams of olives into the dough when they are dusted with flour and see if that helps.