Olive/Tomato Bread rolls

So, I love bread. This is no secret. I once told a friend that bread makes me entirely and incredibly content, and I wasn’t lying. I think a good, soft, white bread can make you fat happy. I’ve had a problem making bread in my life though – in that, it’s never quite turned out the way I would like. So I gave up. I said baking just ‘wasn’t for me’. After moving to Tuscany and learning how to make pizza dough (or all-purpose dough as the Italians use this method for anything bread-like) I thought – hey – why not. And promptly bought some cheap olives and tomatoes. (Well, I wasn’t going to spend good money on something going wrong was I, and I was going on my previous track record…) I made up the dough and after waiting for it to rise I added the olives and tomatoes and nervously put the rolls into the oven. I then left and tried to be productive. Around 20 minutes later I was literally pulled back into the kitchen by the most WONDERFUL smell. There’s a saying that Victory can be shortlived. And in this case it was entirely true as we devoured both rolls within minutes. Yum. Is there any point in me saying that you should eat these straight out of the oven? Ingredients Needed: Strong White bread flour 3 Cups of warm water 1 sachet of fast acting yeast 2 tbsp sugar 2 tbsp salt Olive oil Cherry tomatoes or Olives (black or green) Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the water into a large bowl and mix in the yeast, sugar and salt until they have dissolved. (I always use my fingers as that way you can tell when all the grains have gone. Add in a little flour at a time – always mixing with your fingers. At first it will make a kind of paste – just keep adding flour. And yes, your hands will get very messy. You’ll know that you’ve added enough flour when the dough is almost elastic but still sticky when you knead it. Pat a little flour over the top of the dough and cover with a tea-towel. Leave it to rise in a warm place for around an hour, or until the dough as doubled in size. After the dough has successfully risen take a handful and pop it onto a baking tray. Gently fold in your olives or tomatoes into the mix and make it into a ball. Take some oil and rub a thin layer over the top of the roll. Put it in the oven for around 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take it out of the oven and repeat the oil step. Put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes. Take it out, cut it open and eat quickly before anyone else can get any. We ate this with no butter, no nothing. It was just too good to be ruined with a condiment.