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Cretan Bread

Name: Cretan Bread
Prep time: 3 h 58 min
Cook time: 28 min
Total time: 4 h 26 min
Yield: 8 pieces
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 150 g green olives; 150 g onion; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 150 g feta; 150 g preserved tomatoes; 1 kg plain white flour (French Type 65); 650 ml water; 18 g fine (or table) salt; 15 g yeast; 100 g leaven; 50 g olive oil; 1 tablespoon dry oregano

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

108 K 4.1/5 (24 reviews)636539

Duration

4 hours 30 min.

Difficulty

Easy

Last modified on: October 24^th 2017

Step by step recipe Ingredients Duration Nutritional facts Cost Comments

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: 2,380 grams

Times for this recipe

Preparation

40 min.

Resting

3 hours 20 min.

Cooking

30 min.

All in all

4 hours 30 min.

Preparation 40 min.

Resting 3 hours 20 min.

Cooking 30 min.

When should you start or finish this recipe?

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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 - ⌛ 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 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

	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats	Calories	Energy
Per 100 g	6 g RDI=10 %	39 g RDI=15 %	23 g RDI=32 %	252 kcal RDI=13 %	1,058 kJ RDI=13 %
Per piece	19 g RDI=30 %	117 g RDI=44 %	69 g RDI=96 %	750 kcal RDI=38 %	3,144 kJ RDI=38 %
Whole recipe	157 g RDI=243 %	942 g RDI=356 %	558 g RDI=765 %	6,007 kcal RDI=300 %	25,150 kJ RDI=300 %