Chad Robertson's Olive and Herb Country Bread

At first, I was not planning to post this recipe, because I have posted olive bread recipe, though they are quite different, really. But, my neighbor who live right next to my house (I can literally jump over my fence to get to theirs) called and told me they couldn't get over how delicious this bread was. So, I decided to post the recipe. Hope you are not getting bored to see another bread post. 

* You can substitute this herb mixture with 1 tablespoon combination of each dried basil and oregano.

Olive and Herb Country Bread

Recipe adapted from Chad Robertson's book, Tartine Bread

Makes 2 large loaves

Leaven:

1 tbs mature sourdough starter

200 g (78℉) water

100 g whole wheat flour

100 g rye flour

Bread dough:

700 g + 50 g water (80℉)

200 g leaven

600 g bread flour

400 g spelt flour

20 g salt

1 cup pitted black olive, drained-cut in half

1package McCormick sweet basil and oregano*

The night prior to make this bread, make the leaven by mixing  all ingredients in a bowl until well blended, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and leave to ferment at room temperature for 12 to 16 hours. 

The following day,

in a large bowl add 700 grams of water and 200 grams of leaven. Stir to disperse. Add bread flour, and spelt flour. Mix well. Autolyse (rest) 25 to 40 minutes.

Add the remaining 50 grams of water, and the salt. Mix using your hands by squeezing the dough between your fingers, then fold the dough on to it self. Transfer the dough into a large container with its own lid. Cover - rest for 2 hours. During resting period, you will need to perform 4 series of folds every 30 minutes, adding olives and dried herb on the second fold. When the last fold completed, let the dough rest for another 2 hours. 

Transfer the dough onto kitchen counter top that has been lightly dust with flour. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Preshape each portion into light boule (ball), cover, and let rest 20 - 30 minutes. 

After 20 - 30 minutes of resting, flip the dough so that floured side is facing up. If, by any chance you use a little bit too much flour, simply brush it off (gently) with pastry brush (you don't want to see streaks of flour inside the bread). Shape into tight boule as shown on this video. 

Line 2 bannetons (or bowls if you don't own banneton) with clean dish linens. Dust the linens with mix of rice flour and  all-purposed flour. Transfer each boule into banneton. Cover - refrigerate for 12 hours. if you don't want to wait that long, and prefer milder flavor loaves, let them  rise at room temperature (75 - 80℉) for 3 to 4 hours. 

20 minutes prior to bake the bread, preheat oven to 500℉. Chad Robertson suggested using combo cooker, if you don't own one, you can use any 5 qt Dutch oven. Place combo cooker, or Dutch oven inside the oven to preheated as well.

Take one dough out from refrigerator, carefully transfer it into preheated combo cooker, or Dutch oven (please be very careful, I can only imagine how hot it is after being preheated in the 500℉ oven for 20 minutes). Score the dough with basic square pattern. Place it in the oven, put the lid on, immediately turn the oven temperature down to 450℉. Bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the lid (again, be careful !!!! the lid will be super hot), continue to bake for another 25 minutes, or until dark brown. If you are planning to bake the second loaf, preheat the oven back to 500℉, and repeat the same process.

Remove from the oven, and transfer into rack to cool before serving.

For YeastSpotting!