Olive breadsticks

Olives are the most recent transfer from my disliked food list to my liked food list. It has to be said that leaves the hated food list pretty barren. It pretty much reads tripe and wasabi.

To celebrate this move I baked with them. In a very tasty moreish olive breadstick. These would work well alongside salad, as part of a mezze platter or as a snack/appetiser with drinks.

They take a few hours to make but do not require much effort on your part. This recipe is ever so slightly adapted from Mr Paul Hollywood

Olive breadsticks

makes 8

250g white bread flour
5g instant yeast
5g salt
200ml lukewarm water
2 tsps olive oil, plus extra for greasing
125g olives, de-stoned weight

Grease a square 2L container ready for the dough. You could use a tupperware or square cake tin. 

Put the flour in a bowl and add the yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other. Add ~2/3 of the water and, using a dough hook, start to mix together. When the mixture is starting to come together as a dough add the remaining water to the bowl. Continue mixing with the dough hook for 5-8 minutes until the dough is soft and stretches easily. Add the olive oil and continue to mix for a couple more minutes. Finally add in the olive and mix until evenly dispersed.

Transfer the dough to the oiled container and leave to rise until doubled in size, ~1 1/2 hours.

Line to baking sheets with baking parchment and liberally flour a work surface ad tip the risen doughy out onto it, it will be a loose flowing dough. Gently stretch/pat into an even rectangle.

Cut the dough into 8 even strips. Gently stretch till 20-25cm long and carefully transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Leave to rise for a further 1-1 1/2 hours.  

Preheat the oven to 220C/200C FAN. Bake the breadsticks for 10-15 minutes until golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack. 

These are best eaten the day they are made, they become chewy the next day, though they can be refreshed in the oven for 5 minutes.