Homemade No-Knead Olive Bread Recipe
Serves 8
1080 mins prep
50 mins cook
1130 mins total
This Homemade Olive Bread is a rustic and crusty no-knead bread recipe that anyone can make. Packed with Kalamata olives, this olive loaf comes together so easily in a Dutch oven.
Mix the dry ingredients; bread flour, active dry yeast, and kosher salt, in a large mixing bowl.
Pour in 1 ⅓ cups (316 ml.) lukewarm water.
Give it a mix using a wooden spoon. At this point, the dough needs to be quite sticky. Stir in the chopped olives and ensure that they are equally distributed throughout the batter. (Alternatively, you can use your clean hands to mix and feel the stickiness.)
Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let it sit in a warmer part of your house for 18-24 hours.In my tests, I found that the bread baked after 18 hours of rising time was perfect, but the 24-hour one was also good. One important thing to mention here is that at the end of the rising time you might see a thin (kind of hard - for the lack of a better word) layer at the top of the dough. Don’t be alarmed by that. In the next step, we will fold that into the dough and since it is a sticky one, the additional rising time will help soften it.
Lightly flour a piece of parchment paper, gently remove the dough from the bowl, and place it onto the parchment. While removing, you will realize that it is quite sticky. However, if you take your time and gently pull it by folding it onto itself, you will see that it will come out easily without any dough remaining in the bowl. For a visual, be sure to watch the video below.
Form the dough into a ball tucking the sides of the dough under. Lightly dust it with a little bit of flour, cover it with a clean kitchen towel, and let it rise for 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size. Again, I recommend letting it sit in a warmer part of your house.
Towards the end of the rising time, place your dutch oven in the oven and pre-heat it to 450 F degrees.
When ready to bake, carefully take the now-very hot dutch oven out of the oven. Using the edges of the parchment paper place the dough into the dutch oven. Put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue to bake another 20-30 minutes or until the top is nicely golden brown as you see in the photos.
At the end of the baking, remove it from the dutch oven, place it onto a cooling rack and let it cool for 30-45 minutes before slicing.
