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Cretan Bread

This Cretan (or Cretan-style) bread has a soft dough, enriched with olive oil, preserved tomatoes, green olives and cooked onions.

80K 4.1/5 based on 24 reviews

Last modified on: October 24^th 2017

Keywords for this recipe:

For 8 pieces, you will need:

1 150 g green olives
2 150 g onion
3 2 tablespoons olive oil
4 150 g feta
5 150 g Preserved tomatoes
6 1 kg plain white flour (French Type 65)
7 650 ml water
8 18 g fine (or table) salt
9 15 g yeast
10 100 g leaven (optional)
11 50 g olive oil
12 1 tablespoon dry oregano
Total weight: 2,378 grams

Change these quantities to make:

4 pieces 8 pieces 16 pieces 24 pieces

Change measures:

Metric

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Times for this recipe

Preparation: 38 min.

Resting: 3 hours 20 min.

Cooking: 28 min.

All in all: 4 hours 26 min.

When should you start or finish this recipe?

If you start now, at , you will finish around : ?.Change start time

To finish around 7pm, you'll need to have started before: .Change end time

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - 3 min.

Prepare the filling

Roughly chop 150 g green olives.

Stage 2 - 5 min.

Prepare 150 g onion and slice into thin rings.

Stage 3 - 3 min.

Pour 2 tablespoons olive oil into a saucepan on medium heat. Add the onions, salt and pepper, then mix well.

Cook uncovered without colouring for 2 or 3 minutes.

Stage 4 - 1 min.

Add the onions, 150 g feta and 150 g Preserved tomatoes to the olives...

Stage 5 - 1 min.

...then mix all this together.

Stage 6

In bread-making, the water temperature is always important. It's not a fixed value, but related to 3 other temperatures: 1) the temperature of your flour, 2) the room temperature in your kitchen, and 3) the basic temperature of this recipe, which is 56-60°C.

You can calculate the temperature of the water for this recipe in one click, using this small calculator.

Stage 7 - 5 min.

Put into a food processer bowl: 1 kg plain white flour (French Type 65) *, 650 ml water, 18 g fine (or table) salt, 15 g yeast and 100 g leaven.

*You can use a "strong" bread flour, if this is available.

Stage 8 - 16 min.

Knead on slow speed for 16 minutes.

Note: For the best way to knead, see: A few tips for effective kneading at home.

Stage 9 - 1 min.

Towards the end of kneading, add 50 g olive oil in a thin stream.

Stage 10

Tip: you can use the oil from the preserved (or sun-dried) tomatoes as the olive oil.

Stage 11 - 1 min.

Finish by adding 1 tablespoon dry oregano.

Stage 12 - 1 min.

Add the filling mixture...

Stage 13 - 2 min.

...and knead just enough to mix this in.

Stage 14 - 2 hours

Gather the dough into a ball, transfer to a large, clean bowl and cover with a plastic sheet.

Leave to rest for 2 hours.

Stage 15 - 20 min.

After resting, weigh out the dough into 300 g lumps and shape into balls. Leave these to rest for 30 minutes, covered with a plastic sheet (so that they do not form a crust).

Stage 16 - 1 hour

After this, reshape the balls and put into "bannetons" (baskets).

Leave to rise, covered with plastic as before, for 1 hour.

Stage 17 - 2 min.

Preheat the oven to 480°F (250°C).

Just before putting in the oven, slash the top of the bread.

Stage 18 - 25 min.

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Remarks

If you don't have any oregano, you can use thyme or a mix like "herbes de Provence" instead.

The yeast can be replaced with 300 g of soured dough.

Keeping: A few days in a cloth bag. Freezes well.

Source: Home made but dedicated to Arnaud the french-cretan guy.

Nutritional information

Whole recipe
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
6,007 Kcal or 25,150 Kj	158 gr	943 gr	558 gr
300 %	61 %	89 %	85 %

Per 100 g
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
253 Kcal or 1,059 Kj	7 gr	40 gr	23 gr
13 %	3 %	4 %	4 %

Per piece
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
751 Kcal or 3,144 Kj	20 gr	118 gr	70 gr
38 %	8 %	11 %	11 %

% are calculated relative to a Recommended Dietary Intake or RDI of 2000 k-calories or 8400 k-joules by day for a woman (change to a man).

Possible allergens in this recipe: Milk, Gluten

How much will it cost?

For 8 pieces : 7.29 €
Per piece : 0.91 €

Change currency:

Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

This recipe uses (among others)

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