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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.

88 K 4.1/5 (24 reviews)

4 hours 30 min. difficulté

Easy

7.30 €

16 pieces

12 Ingredients

Last modified on: October 24^th 2017

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For 16 pieces, you will need:

1 1 ¹⁄₃ cup green olives
2 1 ¹⁄₃ cup onion
3 4 tablespoons olive oil
4 1 ¹⁄₃ cup feta
5 1 ¹⁄₃ cup preserved tomatoes
6 13 cups plain white flour (French Type 65)
7 5 ½ cups water
8 ¼ cup fine (or table) salt
9 2 tablespoons yeast
10 1 cup leaven (optional)
11 ½ cup olive oil
12 2 tablespoons 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 1 ¹⁄₃ cup green olives.

Stage 2 - 5 min.

Prepare 1 ¹⁄₃ cup onion and slice into thin rings.

Stage 3 - 3 min.

Pour 4 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, 1 ¹⁄₃ cup feta and 1 ¹⁄₃ 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: 13 cups plain white flour (French Type 65) *, 5 ½ cups water, ¼ cup fine (or table) salt, 2 tablespoons yeast and 1 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 ½ 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 2 tablespoons 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	320 RDI=120 %	1,890 RDI=180 %	1,120 RDI=170 %	12,010 RDI=600 %	50,300 RDI: 600 %
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 16 pieces : 14.60 €
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.

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