BBB October bread

I have been following some of the blogs of the bread baking babes and I saw the monthly breads they were baking. Already for a couple of months I wanted to bake one of those breads, but I never seemed to have enough time to bake bread.  Elizabeth is this month's kitchen of the month and the recipe she choose is Fougasse; a recipe I thought I could handle. It seemed easy and fast.
I wanted to make one with something extra so I decided I wanted one with marinated olives. (I will post the recipe for that in the coming days). It was fast, not too easy (I messed up the first try) and absolutely delicious. Especially with a nice glass of red wine!

My favorite bread dough is a recipe I more or less figured out myself with a technique that I read on BreadBasketCase Instead of kneading the bread you whack the dough around 100 times. It is very fun to do and especially nice after a not so great day!

Ingredients:


400 g flour
300 ml lukewarm water
2,5 tsp dry yeast
2 tsp salt
Handful of chopped  marinated olives (optional)
Olive oil

Mix together with a wooden spoon the flour, yeast and water. Add the salt and mix again.

Dump the dough on a lightly floured surface.

And whack the dough around a 100 times with a roller pin until it is a soft and smooth dough. You may have to add some flour, but do not add too much. It will get less sticky.

Now knead the olives through the dough with your hands. The dough will still be a bit sticky. Put it into a lightly greased bowl.

Put a clean towel over it and let it double in size. In a warm environment it will take about an hour, but it was a cold day so it took about 1,5 hours.

After that you carefully shape the bread into a leaf; at least I tried to shape it as a leaf (see picture). Preheat the oven to 230 degrees. Sprinkle the bread with olive oil and put the bread in after only 10 minutes resting. Decrease the temperature to 210 degrees and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Let it cool and eat with some good olive oil and a nice glass of wine!

Fougasse October bread recipe: http://etherwork.net/blog/?p=1414