Homemade bread with herbs and olive oil

This is a very pretty and tasty bread. Adding herbs like rosemary and sage makes a very fragrant and aromatic bread.

This is like a kind of garlic bread without being garlic bread. It is more like a focaccia made into a roll but with added garlic too so there is plenty of flavour packed into it. It could be enjoyed through a meal or just on its own as a snack.

If you won’t eat it up all on the same day you store it in a tin or in a plastic bag and you will find that it will keep nice and soft for a few days afterwards.

• Prep Time : 45 minutes
• Cook Time : 40 minutes

Ingredients

• strong bread flour – 800 g
• warm water – 280 ml
• salt – half tbsp
• olive oil
• fresh yeast – 25 g (or a sacket of dry yeast for bread making)
• rosemary – 4 sticks
• sage leaves – 8
• garlic – 2 cloves

Instructions

Melt the yeast with some of the warm water (add 1 tsp of sugar if using dry yeast). Then add the flour, 4 tbsp of olive oil, salt and the rest of the water. Work it well with your hands on your working top for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth.

Make the dough into a ball, put it in a bowl and cover it with a cloth. Let it rest for a couple of hours in a warm place until it has doubled in size

Work the dough for another 10 minutes then dust your working top with some flour and with a rolling pin flatten the pastry making it into a long rectangle about 40 x 30 cm. Chop the rosemary, the sage and the garlic and mix them up with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Spread the herbs mixture over the pastry leaving 1 cm around the edges.

Roll the pastry from the longer side of the rectangle and then seal it well.

Now join the two ends together and make it into a ring. Make incisions about 5 cm distant to each another and 2 cm from the centre.

Fold every slice on top of the next one to make the cuts visible

Lay the ring on a greased baking tray and cover it up with a cloth and let it rest for 45 minutes then cook it at 190C for 30-40 minutes until golden.