I decided to create this recipe based on a lot of reading about different ingredients and different processing steps. Thus, I did not get this recipe out of a book or the Internet. Instead, it is a composite of many of the various things I have read, plus an idea or two of my own. As I made it, using three rising intervals, the grain of the bread is fine. You can have larger air pockets if you want by eliminating the second rise step. Also by doing the final rise overnight in the refrigerator.
Note that you can choose to substitute many different types of vegetable pieces instead of using the kalamata olives. Think perhaps of bits of hot peppers, or sauteed onion or shallot pieces, or chopped chives, or minced sauteed fresh garlic. There also is almost no limit to the variety of dried herbs you might use to create unique flavors.
The recipe shows the King Arthur® brand of bread flour as it has the highest gluten content of common bread flours. You could substitute all purpose flour if you remember to use additional vital wheat gluten beyond what is called for in this recipe, at the rate of 1 additional teaspoon per cup of flour. I purchased Anthony's brand of vital wheat gluten via Amazon® as it had the best price.
The directions look complicated but the doing of the steps is simple and obvious, so don't let the directions frighten you off.
Ingredients: (makes one, 1 pound loaf of French style bread)
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1 tsp. of sugar
2 cups of King Arthur® bread flour (11 ounces by weight ... use a kitchen scale and be precise)
2 tbsp. of butter
1 tsp. of sea salt
4 tsp. of vital wheat gluten
1 tsp. of Kosher salt
1 egg white
1/4 cup of water
1 1/2 tsp. of Active Dry Yeast
12 pitted Kalamata olives
Vegetable oil
Corn Meal
All purpose flour for dusting olive pieces and the cutting board used to roll out the dough
Parchment paper
Directions:
Pit 12 kalamata olives, then cut each one into four pieces. Put the pieces on a paper towel, spread out. Put another paper towel on top and press to make the paper towels absorb the liquid from the olive pieces.
Put the olive pieces into a cup and add two tablespoons of flour. Then coat the olive pieces evenly with the flour using your fingers. Set the cup aside.
Scald the 1/2 cup of regular milk to a temperature of 180 degrees F in the microwave oven, using an instant read thermometer to check the temperature. Mix the 1 tsp. of sugar into the milk. Then, let the milk cool to a temperature of 105 degrees F. That will take about ten minutes.
Add the yeast to the 105 degrees F milk and mix it in with a spoon. In about ten minutes you will see the mixture foaming, indicating that the yeast is active and ready to use.
While the yeast is blooming, warm the butter and the buttermilk for 20 seconds in the microwave oven. Then put the butter and buttermilk into the bowl of a stand mixer.
Put the flour, the gluten and the sea salt into a two quart bowl and whisk them briefly to mix them.
Add half of the flour mixture to the stand mixer bowl gradually while running the mixer on medium low speed. Then add half of the yeast and milk mixture to the mixing bowl and continue running the mixer on medium low speed.
Add the second half of the flour mixture to the mixer bowl gradually while running it on medium speed. Then add the other half of the yeast and milk mixture to the mixing bowl and mix until the dough starts to come together, about one minute.
Replace the regular mixer beater with the dough hook and knead the dough for three minutes on medium speed. At this point the dough should be well formed and ready to be placed in a bowl for the first rise.
Lightly oil a 2 quart bowl with vegetable oil, then put the dough into the bowl. Use a bit more oil to assure the top of the dough is oily. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
Place the bowl aside in a warm room or put it into a 100 degrees F proofing oven. Let the dough rise until it fills the bowl.
Take the plastic wrap from the bowl and gently punch down the dough. Then put the plastic wrap back on the bowl and again let it rise until it fills the bowl.
Remove the bowl from the proofing oven (if you used one). Then set the oven temperature to 500 degrees F.
Place an oven proof bowl of water on the bottom shelf of the oven.
While the oven is heating, whisk together the 1/4 cup of water, the egg white, and the 1 tbsp. of Kosher salt, in a small bowl.
Sprinkle flour generously on an 18" long wooden cutting board. Then dump the dough on to the middle of the cutting board.
Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll the dough out to a length of 17 inches, allowing it to become less wide at each end and stay wide in the middle.
Place the Kalamata olive pieces evenly over the surface of the dough. Then roll up the dough from one side all the way to the other side, making a tube of dough about 18" long.
Put parchment paper on a baking sheet and sprinkle the paper with corn meal. Then place the dough tube on the corn meal.
Let the dough rise again covered with a damp dish towel, on a counter surface for about 20 to 30 minutes. Then remove the dish towel.
Using a butcher knife, cut diagonal slits across the top of the risen dough every inch from one end to the other, each slit roughly 1/4" to 1/2" deep.
Brush the water, egg white and salt mixture all over the exposed surface of the dough.
When the oven is at 500 degrees F put the baking sheet on to middle shelf of the oven and set a timer for ten minutes.
When the timer signals the ten minute mark reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F.
Set the timer for 15 minutes and continue baking the bread. Note that you can be precise in knowing when the bread is baked. Instead of simply following a fixed time period as indicated in the next step, check the internal temperature of the bread with an instant read thermometer. When the internal temperature of the thickest part of the bread is 190 degrees F the bread is done baking.
When the 15 minute baking time is done remove the baking tray from the oven.
Brush the top of the loaf with melted butter.
Let the loaf cool to close to room temperature, then cut of some slices, butter them and really enjoy eating the bread!