These delicious olive breadsticks are great for entertaining but are equally good for a picnic or packed lunch. Made with an olive blend of your choice, they’re the perfect partner for our award-winning tapenades. Make 36 breadsticks.
Ingredients
1kg strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
20g salt
20g yeast
800ml tepid water
4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for oiling
1kg pouch of olives (blend of your choice), roughly chopped
Fine semolina, for dusting
Method
Oil 2x 2-3 litre square plastic containers.
Put the flour into the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Add 3/4 of the water and begin mixing on a slow speed. As the dough starts to come together, gradually add the remaining water.
Mix for a further 5-8 minutes on a medium speed. The dough should now be wet and stretch easily when pulled. Add the olive oil and mix fro a further 2 minutes. Add the olives and mix until evenly spread throughout the dough.
Put the dough into the oiled containers and leave until they have at least tripled in size, for approximately an hour.
Line 4x baking trays with baking parchment or silicone paper and preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
Dust the work surface heavily with flour and add some semolina too. Carefully tip the dough onto the surface. It will be very loose and flowing, but don’t worry. Rather than knocking it back as you usually would with bread, handle it gently so that you keep as much air in the dough as possible.
Dust the top of the dough with flour and then stretch it out gentle to a rough rectangle. Starting at one long edge, cut the dough into approximately 36 strips. Stretch each piece out until 20-25cm long. Place 6x strips onto each of the prepared baking trays, spacing them apart.
Bake the breadsticks for 10-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.