Now for something completely different.....

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Remember Monty Python? Well, this is not them but I have to say that for years I pooh-poohed Paul Hollywood as a jokester because I thought of him as just the next pretty face in the food world...well, then I started looking at his bread recipes and techniques and that completely changed my mind. The man is a bread master. The last baguettes I made were made following his technique and were the best I have ever produced. I made his pretzels. Wonderful. I made these breadsticks that looked so weird. Absolutely wonderful. So ugly, so delicious! I made them again yesterday. I used giant Queen olives from Costco- laugh but try them...if you like green olives you will love them! He has a thing about not putting dry yeast and salt together. Ok so I fought it at first but then realized he is right. The dough is unwieldy and wet but just go with the blue eyes.

PAUL HOLLYWOOD OLIVE BREADSTICKS

4-1/2 c bread flour

5 tsp salt

5 tsp instant yeast

1-1/2 pts tepid water

4 T olive oil plus extra for oiling

2lb, 2 oz green olives, drained

Fine semolina for dusting

Oil 2-3 qt square plastic containers. Put the flour into mixer bowl. Add salt to one side, the yeast to the other. Add ¾ of the water and mix on slow speed. As the dough comes together gradually add the remaining water. Mix 5-8 min at med. Speed. Dough will be wet and stretch easily when pulled. Add olive oil and mix for a further 2 min. Add the olives and mix until well distributed. Put dough into oiled containers and let them triple in size, an hour. Line baking trays with parchment and preheat oven to 425. Dust work surface with flour and semolina. Carefully tip dough onto the surface. Handle it gently so as much air is left in the dough as possible. Dust the top of the dough with flour and stretch it out gently to a rough rectangle. Cut into 36 strips. Stretch each until 8-10” long. And space apart on sheet. Bake 10-15 min. Cool on wire rack.

 
I have some olives rolling around in the fridge. Will try this today. For me, the yeast and salt

is an old rule. I always keep them separate as I do sugar.

But then my breads are nothing to write about.

 
interesting but

I read through this and then at the end it says

"To prevent this inconsistency, always try to keep the yeast separated from the salt and sugar. You can accomplish this by putting the salt, sugar and yeast into the water"

How is that not contradicting what was just said including the previous comments about salt/sugar messing with how yeast deals with liquid?

 
Yes, I saw that also but in another article I read it specifically showed how water

caused the deterioration of the yeast cells and led to decreased activity. I'll find it.

 
So after that, I really had to see who this is. Oh yes, I remember him. Hard not to notice his charm

 
Cathy, I have a question about the recipe amounts

You typed 1 1/2 pts water, but other posts with this recipe call for 400ml, which is closer to 1 1/2 cups.

The latter seems to make more sense to me. I'm going to try that and see what kind of dough results I get.

 
Yes, I think the problem was in the amount of flour. The recipe called for 2 lb which, I believe,

equals about 8 cups rather than 4. When I made this it was like flour soup on a sheet. I threw it all out even after adding a lot more flour, because it just wasn't good enough. But also, I found this very pretty bright green worm at the bottom of the bag thinking he might pass himself off as an olive. Not sure that he had had any relatives that made it past me, away it all went.

The other quantities seem to be fine with 2 lb. flour.

I admit that when I saw the quantity of olives, I should have probed further.

I did bake it anyway just because I was curious but I ended up with more bread than stick and I was looking for stick.

I made some again with adjustments but used the bread machine. It was good, but wanted the olives in larger chunks so need to add them at the end of the cycle. The trouble is that because they are slippery little tykes, I know they will not mix in predictably. My friends are enjoying the cast-offs as I am going to do this again on the weekend.

Thank you for introducing me to this Cathy. I will rewrite the recipe once I have done another batch on the weekend. This has a terrific flavour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/olive_breadsticks_79125

 
Yes, my second batch looked like this. But I still want to shoot for sticks that are not so bready.

Check out Paul's recipe in the link.

 
My finished bits are a bit bizarre

Some of them look like bad actors from an alien movie!

I think I learned a few things from try #1. I will try again.

They do taste pretty good though.

 
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