1,459 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

Cretan Bread

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

82 K 4.1/5 (24 reviews)

4 hours 30 min. difficulté

Easy

7.30 €

8 pieces

12 Ingredients

Last modified on: October 24^th 2017

For 8 pieces, you will need:

1 ²⁄₃ cup green olives
2 ²⁄₃ cup onion
3 2 tablespoons olive oil
4 ²⁄₃ cup feta
5 ²⁄₃ cup Preserved tomatoes
6 6 ²⁄₃ cups plain white flour (French Type 65)
7 2 ¾ cups water
8 2 tablespoons fine (or table) salt
9 1 tablespoon yeast
10 ½ cup leaven (optional)
11 ¼ cup olive oil
12 1 tablespoon dry oregano

Change these quantities to make:

4 pieces 8 pieces 16 pieces 24 pieces

Change measures:

Metric

Metric weight Metric volumes

Times for this recipe

Preparation: 40 min.

Resting: 3 hours 20 min.

Cooking: 30 min.

All in all: 4 hours 30 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 ²⁄₃ cup green olives.

Stage 2 - 5 min.

Prepare ²⁄₃ cup 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, ²⁄₃ cup feta and ²⁄₃ cup 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: 6 ²⁄₃ cups plain white flour (French Type 65) *, 2 ¾ cups water, 2 tablespoons fine (or table) salt, 1 tablespoon yeast and ½ cup leaven.

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

Stage 8 - 20 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 ¼ cup 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

	Proteins (gr)	Carbohydrates (gr)	Fats (gr)	Energy value (in k-calories)	Energy value (in k-joules)
Whole recipe	160 RDI=60 %	940 RDI=90 %	560 RDI=90 %	6,010 RDI=300 %	25,150 RDI: 300 %
Per 100 g	6 RDI=3 %	40 RDI=4 %	20 RDI=4 %	250 RDI=10 %	1,060 RDI: 10 %
Per piece	20 RDI=8 %	120 RDI=10 %	70 RDI=10 %	750 RDI=40 %	3,140 RDI: 40 %

The % figures are calculated in relation to the Recommended Dietary Intake , or RDI of 2,000 k-calories (or 8,400 k-joules) per day for a woman Change to a man

Possible allergens in this recipe: Milk, Gluten

How much will it cost?

For 8 pieces : 7.30 €
Per piece : 0.95 €

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)

Other recipes you may also like

"Buttonhole" quail eggs

This little appetizer consists of a small finger of toast, a slice of cured ham and three quail egg yolks arranged on a rectangle of egg white. It is a bit tricky to make, but very attractive to serve, and delicious, of course.
June 26^th 2011173 K5 60 min.

Flambéd bananas

The trick of this recipe is to end up with bananas caramelised on the outside, still firm on the inside, coated with a tasty syrup which is not 95% butter.
February 21^th 2011321 K 14 40 min.

Brioche dough

It's a soft and rich dough, with butter and eggs which give a smooth and incredibly tasty brioche. This is the basic recipe for brioche dough, used for all other brioche-based recipes on the site.
September 16^th 2020519 K 44.2 14 hours 30 min.

Clarified butter

This is a way of melting butter to eliminate all the impurities. The clarified butter can then be heated without spoiling, and is more digestible. It is ideal for cooking at high temperatures where small black specks would spoil the appearance, or for emulsified sauces like béarnaise or mousseline.
June 21^th 2017456 K4.2 2 hours 15 min.

Sugar syrup

This syrup is mainly used as a basis for all sorbet recipes, which consist of this syrup and fruit pulp, but it can be also used to soak biscuits for example, or for fruit salads.
February 21^th 2011744 K3.5 8 min.

News list of cooking-ez.com

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.