Artisan Bread

I love to bake bread.  I like to be able to devote an entire weekend to starting the biga, letting it ferment, rise....bake....you get the picture.  But, I don't always have an entire weekend to baby-sit dough.  About a year ago, I bought the book, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day", even though it goes against every grain of the fiber of my being.  This book basically says you can dump all the bread ingredients in a bowl, leave it on the counter for 2 hours and refrigerate the entire batch, and cut pieces off as you need them.  What?? No kneading (which, by the way, I find incredibly satisfying and stress-relieving)??  No separating the sugar and the salt??  Needless to say, I bought the book, read it, thought to myself, "eh...can't be good."  I think I even tried the basic recipe, wasn't impressed and threw out the entire batch of dough.  A year later, enter the Olive Oil Shop in downtown Charleston, also known as a cook's paradise.  Vats of olive oils and balsalmic vinegars line the walls of the little shop where you can actually taste each and every oil and vinegar, right on the spot!  Each vat was labeled and includes a description like that of a bottle of wine.  After tasting, I bought a bottle of Koroneiki.  I tasted it first because the description said, "deceptively smooth in the beginning, but quickly increases in intensity and complexity, and finishes with a pronounced flourish."  They weren't kidding...it was like a smooth silky oil that, after swallowing, left a zing in your mouth.  I had to have it and have it I did.  As I'm driving back, I think of all the things that the Koroneiki olive oil would make taste even better, and I thought of a foccacia bread that I like to make that has olive oil as an ingredient.  I also think about that book.  So, I dust it off the shelf, read it again, and realized that there is indeed an olive oil dough recipe.  Hmmm....Last week I made a batch, and I do believe I've found bread baking bliss.  The taste of bread I've spent an entire weekend nurturing and kneading, but without the time.  What a concept!  I, of course, tweaked the recipe just a little.  I made the dough a little more wet than it called for and I added more olive oil than it called for, because my new olive oil was indeed the star of the show.  This bread is the best I've made, and I can eat it fresh every day if I want!  How much better can it get?


Olive Oil Dough
Makes four 1 lb loaves


2 3/4 cups warm water
1 1/2 packets of granulated yeast
1 1/2 tblsp of kosher salt
1 tblsp sugar
3/4 c olive oil
5 1/2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour


Mix the yeast, the sugar, and the water together.  Add to a bowl with a lid.  Mix in the salt.  Add the flour, stir to incorporate the flour, and add the olive oil.  Mix together until well blended.  Cover and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses (or flattens on top), about 2 hours.  Refrigerate in the lidded container and use within the next 12 days.  It gets better each day.
To use a portion of the dough, sprinkle the dough with a little flour, grab a hunk of dough, cut it off with a serrated knife.  Sprinkle flour on the surface you're using (I use my counter tops) and on the dough ball.  Take the surface of the dough and stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all sides.  This should only take about 30-40 seconds.  Rest the dough on the surface for about 45 minutes, and cover with a towel.  20 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with the baking stone in the oven.  Once preheated, slide the dough onto the baking stone and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden.  Let cool before slicing...I know it's tempting but it's better if you wait.