Weekend Baking: Part 2 - Olive Bread Swirls

Even though this is part two of my weekend baking, I actually started making this first before the Cheesy Bonfire Bread. I loved the idea of it the moment I saw them on the BBC GoodFood site. They look just like cinnamon rolls but are a savory version called Olive Bread Swirls. I was a bit more worried about making this as it involved yeast and needed to sit around to rise quite a bit. I was afraid it wouldn't rise but as you can see in the picture that it did, in fact it doubled in size! As I don't have my stand mixer yet, I kneaded this for 10 minutes by hand. It reminded me of being a kid and playing with play-dough. I really enjoyed making it and watching it rise. I will have to practice the part where you roll the filling in it, to try to get more perfect swirls, but I was really happy with how they turned out. They tasted lovely straight out of the oven. It would be nice served with marinara sauce or some garlic butter to dip it in. This completes recipe 100 of "My 100" list.

Recipe

Courtesy of BBC GoodFood

Ingredients: 

500g strong white flour, plus extra for rolling

1 tsp salt

7g sachet easy-blend dried yeast 

6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little for brushing

small bunch of basil 

170g pitted kalamata olives (about 200g unpitted weight)

1 garlic clove, crushed 

50g pitted green olives 

Steps:

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, yeast, 1 tbsp olive oil and 300ml warm water, to make a soft dough. Knead by hand for 10 mins or with the dough hook in a food processor or mixer for 5 mins. Put the dough back in the cleaned out mixing bowl, then cover the bowl with oiled cling film. Leave to rise for an hr in a warm place until doubled in size.
2. Meanwhile, make the filling. Discard any tough basil stalks (leave tender ones on) and put in a mini food processor or hand blender beaker with the black olives. Add 4 tbsp olive oil, the garlic and the anchovies, if using. Whizz to a rough paste.
3. Heat oven to 220C/200C fan. Line a shallow baking tin about 30 x 20cm with non-stick paper. On a floured worktop, roll out the dough to a rectangle roughly 30 x 40cm. Spread the olive paste all over and arrange the whole green olives in a line down one of the short edges. Roll up the dough like a Swiss roll, starting at the short olive-encrusted end to make a sausage shape.
4. Cut the dough into 12 slices, then carefully lift each one into the tin, to make 4 rows of 3 swirl shapes. Lightly brush all over with the remaining olive oil. Loosely cover with cling film, then leave to rise for 20 mins or so, until slightly puffed up and filling the tin. Cook for 20-25 mins until golden, then leave to cool in the tin.