Easy Kalamata Olive Ciabatta Bread
Daria Souvorova
2.5-3 hours
serves: Makes 1 18 inch loaf
You can make this ciabatta recipe without olives, and it is perfectly delicious, but today, I decided I wanted to combine my Kalamata Olive Loaf and Ciabatta to create a beautiful new bread baby! It seems I make a lot of “combinations” here at Chez Nous Dinners!
I made it again this week and wanted to share the recipe with all of you! I hope you enjoy it.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups less 2 tablespoons warm water
- 1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
- 3 1/4 cups bread flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- pinch of sugar
- 1 cup chopped, pitted, Kalamata olives
- 2 tablespoons olive oil plus oil for greasing dough
-
- Mix water and yeast, leave for 10 minutes.
- Mix flours into yeast water.
Add salt and sugar and mix in a stand mixer with a kneading attachment until combined, and then for 10 minutes longer at medium speed.
Add the olives and mix for a minute longer at low speed.
The dough will seem too liquid, almost like a cake dough. This is good. - Oil a mixing bowl. Add the dough and move it around to coat the sides. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil on top.
Cover with a moist cloth, place in your oven with the pilot light on and let rise for about an hour. Keep the dough at around 80 degrees Farenheit. This can be achieved by placing the dough below a light, in a warm spot on top of the fridge, or my favorite, in the oven with the light on. - After an hour, the dough should have doubled. If it has not doubled, you have to give it a bit more time – this could be because you used cold water, or your kitchen is cooler than 80 degrees. Give it more time or try to find a warmer spot.
Smack it back down, and mix the oil in a bit.
Cover and let rise for another 40 minutes to an hour. - Preheat oven to 400°F with the convection fan on. If you don’t have a convection fan, raise the temperature to 425°F and flip the cookie sheet halfway through baking.
Cover a cookie sheet with a piece of parchment. Sprinkle with flour.
Dump dough onto the floured parchment and form it into an 18 inch log. It will be sticky and floppy, do your best.
I dump mine onto the table and then try to fold it like a letter before using the parchment to help me flip it over.
Sprinkle the top with flour. - Bake for 30-40 minutes until the crust is flaky and golden brown.
If unsure, stick a meat thermometer in from the bottom. It should read 185°F. - Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing open…I have to chant this to myself on the regular to prevent myself from eating all the bread before dinner.
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Chez Nous 
fantastic share.
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Tried making this this last weekend. Whilst I love the olive to bread ratio, i did something wrong with the yeat and it just did NOT rise. it’s a dense damp mess, not big open bubble spaces in the bread. Was so so dissapointed that I messed it up! Any pointers on what I might have done wrong??
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Thanks for reaching out! Some things I can think of may be the temperature in your kitchen. If it was much below 72, you may need a longer time for it to rise. My other thought is the yeast may be too old or different than standard. I use active dry yeast. Fresh yeast works much differently, and I have never tried “bread machine yeast” and cannot comment on it. What type did you use, and would you check the expiration date so we can rule that out as the culprit?
It could also be your elevation. I am at sea level, so everything is timed for that. If you are at higher elevation, what might have happened is the dough rose faster and then collapsed back into itself. At higher elevations, you need a bit less yeast and I would check it more frequently.
I have never had the issue of this particular recipe being too dense, so that is my best advice. Did you happen to take a photo, I might be able to help more if I see what is happening.
Hope that helped! If you want to workshop it, remove the kalamata, and try the ciabatta on its own and see if it works better that way.
Cheers,
Daria
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Can I add more olives then one cup? Also why did you not mix the sugar in the water with the yeast?
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Hey Sandy, sorry it took me a while to see your comment. Sure, you can add more than one cup! I wrote this when I was on the poor side, so I have been adding more since then too 🙂 The sugar isn’t a huge player here, you don’t really need sugar to activate the yeast, and if it is put in into the yeast and water, the yeast will start activating with the sugar, where I prefer it to activate with the flour directly. It takes a bit longer, but I think a slightly slower fermentation adds to the flavor. Sometimes I make the recipe without sugar
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