Hi!
I’m planning to do an olive sourdough this weekend, but because I’ve never made a bread with olives, I'm not really sure what ratio I should add them in at.
My normal sourdough is a high-ish (78%) hydration, lean, “country” loaf, with 20% whole wheat. I’m planning to do everything else like normal, but add kalamata olives.
I’ve got a jar with 180g of olives (which would work out to ~16%). Should I use more or less?
Thanks!
I put in between 13 and 18 % usually of extras. Just be aware that the higher amounts will weigh your dough down and you won’t get a super open crumb. The taste makes up for the lack of holes. ?
Hey .. I also really wing out the moisture in them.didnt do that before and my dough was super wet
I should be good then, as long as I have enough self control to not eat any of the olives before then...
I’m not too worried about the hydration level. I’ll certainly withhold some water (which I do anyway until the end of mixing), but I’m confindent in working with even wetter doughs than my normal one (if something goes awry).
thanks for the suggestions! I’m excited to try it.
If they are kalamatas, I recommend rinsing them fairly well and then giving them a bit of a squeeze before adding
I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks!
Olives might be too fragile for the initial mixing. Jalapeno rings too. I recently made a loaf and I thought that 60 grams of jalapeno rings would not be too much, and that I could just incorporate them during my S&F sets. Oh brother, what a struggle. It was like the dough was actively resisting me, expelling the jalapeno rings with every fold...
I made the same loaf a second time but cut the jalapeno rings down to only 40 grams. It was still a struggle.
Well good luck with the olives and please let us know how it goes!
It came out really nicely! I mixed them in after I’d mixed in everything else, but before doing stretches and folds. The olives were easily firm enough to hold up to the mixing, but I was able to get them really well incorporated. The crumb wasn’t as open as Id’ve liked, but I’m way out of practice (Christmas was my last bake), baking in an oven that is tricky to steam, and I was using a new timing. You can see the result here. The taste of the bread and the texture of the crust were spot on. It also didn’t go stale very fast — the cut surface was still super soft after a day, unprotected (but it was all eaten after then, so I don’t have much data to go off of).
now I am inspired to bake a Kalamata loaf! Maybe next week...
165 grams of olives... that is quite a lot! More than four times as much as the jalapeno rings I recently included (I added mine during the stretch and folds). I will definitely try adding at the very end of the mix next time.
I was surprised at how it wasn’t overpowering. It was just the level I was aiming for. Even my friends who don’t like olives enjoyed the bread :) Jalapeños do have a pretty strong flavor — especially if you don’t eat much spicy food.
Keep in mind that that 165g was for a pretty big bread batch — 1100g flour. The only reason it wasn’t 180g is I couldn’t help myself from eating a few :)
Good of luck with your bread! This batch came out really great, except for the openness of the crumb.