Hopefully you will enjoy this recipe created to be eaten as an Italian bread… It would go great with fried peppers and a shellfish salad, or fried eggs with a slice of fresh tomato topped with basil, garlic and a spicy olive oil.

We were visiting Italy in 2022 when I got an inspiration to write this recipe. We had an olive bread at a farmers market at Lake Lugano. It was good, but a little dry for me. It may have been a day too old. I guess it would be perfect if you dipped it in the juice of your tomato salad and ate it with porchetta. The way it was packed with olives was the selling point for me. I love olives! We also had a pizza in Siena (we had this same pizza at this same place years ago) with a perfect crust…a little crunchy and full of flavor. I thought the combination of the two would create the perfect bread to be sliced and dipped in your favorite garlic oil or used as sandwich bread. Funny…I rarely saw my grandpa (from Italy) ever eat a sandwich, and when he did it seemed like a project for him. He would normally have bread in his left hand and a fork in his right.

I came home and had to reason through the recipe How airy should it me, should it be made using sourdough, and what kind of flour and olives should be used were just a few questions I had to answer. I then had to reason through how the dough should be shaped to create the inside texture while keeping the outside perfect. I thought folding the oil into the dough seemed much better than adding it all at once. It would create layers… Cooking them on a hot stone was a must! Hopefully you like the results of my recipe testing.

Click here if you need the recipe for the sourdough starter I used in this recipe.

Italy is such a beautiful place, the people…the food - La vita è bella! (Life is beautiful!)

Enjoy!