A great tasting and fairly easy bread to make, ideal for sharing. Perfect as a starter with dips, as a side to a warming winter soup, or a summer salad garnish.
Recipe
Prep time 15 minutes, plus 2 hours to rest/prove, cooking time 30 minutes
Ingredients
425 g Plain flour
260 ml Water
90 ml Olive oil, plus extra for greasing the baking tin
3 – 4 sprigs fresh Rosemary, or about 15 g dried Rosemary
2 – 3 cloves of Garlic
10 g Cooking Salt
5 g Dried Yeast
1/2 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
Salt flakes for garnish
Method
- Stir the yeast into the water and allow to reactivate for 5 minutes
- Peel and crush the garlic
- Wash and pick the Rosemary, then reserving about a 1/4 the garnish, chop the remainder
- In a large bowl add the Flour, the chopped Rosemary, Garlic, Cooking Salt, Black Pepper and 30 ml of the oil
- Add the Yeasty water to the Flour mix and work into a dough.
- Put the dough onto the work surface and knead and stretch for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
- Do not add any extra flour, the dough is sticky but will come together as you knead.
- Can be done in a mixer at slow speed using dough hook
- Once the dough is ready, place back in the bowl and cover with cling wrap. Place in a warm, dark place for an hour or until dough doubles in volume.
- Remove dough from bowl and lightly stretch, then allow to rest for 5 -10 minutes.
- Prepare the baking tray with an even coating of olive oil, transfer the dough and stretch and level to fill the tray. Allow to rest for at least 30 minutes covered with a clean tea towel
- Preheat the oven to 200o Celsius
- Scatter the dough with the reserved Rosemary sprigs and salt flakes, then make multiple deep dimples using fingertips. Drizzle the remaining 60 ml of olive oil evenly over the top
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until evenly browned, then cool on a wire rack.
Notes
When I make this bread, it is usually all eaten same day, but should be stored in an ait tight container at room temperature if you have any left over.
You can mix up other flavours too. Try using other herbs such as Sage, Oregano or Thyme being all good options. You may want to add chopped Sundried Tomatoes, Roasted Capsicum or even Feta Cheese to the mix too.
VinceHomeMade 