Recipe 31: Coriander, Olive and Onion Bread

I loved this bread, it was a nice one to make and what a lovely combo of favours!

So we begin with the usual mixing of the ingredients, I tried this using the scraper again and I really do like using it but I'm having trouble picking up all the flour, this way though should be easier but towards the end I usually end up using my hands which works out anyway as I need to take it out the bowl for kneading anyway.

Kneading is getting easier, apparently I make it look effortless too (my mum watched me for a little while, haha) but it is still harder than it looks, but the results are getting better so I take it there must be some muscles strengthen in there! Then time to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix, the perfect amount of time to leave the dough to rise.

Well, that was an exciting race! Anyway, just before having a sneak peak at the dough, it was time to sort the ingredients to favour this bread. A handful of fresh chopped coriander, one onion finely chopped and roughly chopped black pitted olives.

Then tip the dough out of the bowl and then knead all the ingredients back into the dough, you don't have to knead for a full on 1o minutes though, just enough for the favours to be evenly spread. It smelt lovely!

After, you then place back into the bowl to rise again, the book said only 30 minutes but I left mine a little longer, not for any particular reason – just busy!

The next part was to shape the dough, firstly tap it into a rough rectangle and then roll up into a sausage, a bit easier said than done as my dough kept getting stuck onto the surface! But it got there in the end. Time to leave for another hour, this time to prove.

Whilst waiting, I actioned the next part of the recipe – to make a little seed mix for the top of the bread, the seeds were: sesame seeds, nigella seeds and black cumin seeds.

After an hour, when the dough is nice and proved, it's nearly time to finally put it in the oven to bake! But firstly, the seed mix! Brush some warm water over the dough and sprinkle the seeds all over the bread and then time to put it the oven for around half an hour.

The oven really annoyed me today as this was such a lovely bake but one side came out golden brown and the other side came out quite pale, silly oven not giving me an even bake! But either way the result was amazing, I'm not even a fan of olives but I loved it, and onion in bread is amazing, I can't wait to try loads of different of my own favours when I finish the book and I get the feeling onion with some other ingredients might be one of my first to try!

Reviews? As I said above, I don't like olives but I loved this and the bread was so light and airy, was very happy with it! I chopped the loaf in half for the 2 olive lovers I know, my aunt and Gina so I'm sure they will give me an honest review!