Olive Bread Recipe or Fougasse aux Olives | Not Just Bread!

This Olive Bread Recipe - Fougasse aux Olives Recette below is the one I make at home with black olives.

Very easy to make and simply delicious!

Actually this recipe is from my Auntie Antoinette who makes many delicious dishes, cakes and and so on and so forth from the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur, our region.

With my sister we learnt a lot from her and my Grandmother (Mémé Rosette) when we were kids as we were the only grandchildren among all who loved cooking and they enjoyed teaching us.

Thanks to these two women my sister and I, we perpetuate our family traditions.

My Auntie and other menbers of my family are helping me for this Provencal French Recipes Guide

I would like to Thank You all of them here for their help, tips and tricks...:)

Let's get back to our olive bread with two important tips:

		Use the best olives and olive oil you can find for this recipe..
		Add good quality mix herbs or replace the olives and salt with 1 tablespoon of herbes de Provence, another yummy version.

Olive Bread Recipe - Ingredients

• 500 grams of regular wheat flour.


• 1 sachet baker’s yeast.


• 4 tablespoons of olive oil.


• 25 cl tepid water.


• 75 grams stoned black olives.


• A pinch of salt.

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Olive Bread Recipe - How to

• Put the flour on the working surface, add the salt and make a well in the middle.


• Add the yeast, half the olive oil and the water.


• Using the tip of the fingers, mix all the ingredients until obtaining a flexible dough.


• Transfer the dough to a floured terrine and cover with a cloth.


• Leave to rest for 1 ˝ hours. The dough must double in volume.


• During that time, quarter the olives.


• Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.


• When the dough has risen, divide it in two portions.


• Spread the dough portions on an oiled baking sheet. They must have a round shape, 2 cm thick.


• Make parallel incision in the dough and slightly open the edge.


• Spread the olives over each circle and fold back into half circle.


• Brush them with olive and put the sheet in the oven.


• Bake for 20 minutes.


• They must be just slightly golden.


• Done!

Easy this Olive Bread Recipe, isn't it?!

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It is not just another French Bread!

The fougasse, ou fougace ou fouasse is a provencal flat bread.

It is usually an herbed French bread molded into a beautiful leaf shapeor wheat stalk.

It makes easier to pull apart the bread.

In Italy its name is focaccia and has different versions from a flat bread to a sort of pizza.

It is generally sold in shops called focacceria.

Fougasse is also emblematic of Provence, sometimes enhanced with olives, anchovies, bacon, different cheese.

They are others delicious recipes, like lemon and rosemary, with tapenade, with Roquefort (smelly French cheese!) and nuts, with onion and bacon and/or other ingredients.

In French cuisine, fougasse is a type of bread typically associated with the South but also found (with many variations) in other regions, cities, villages.

Even in families each one having its own recipe!

Most of the recipes are salty but some recipes are sweet too.

As example in the Aubrac area in the Aveyron and Lozére "départements".

The Rouerge area kept the name of fouace for the fougasse from the Aubrac area.

There is also the one from Aigues-Mortes in the Bouches du Rhone "département".

Or in Grasse the "fougassette" which is a little bit like a brioche and flavoured with orange flower water.

How you can see Olive Bread recipe or Fougasse aux Olives is one of the mant avilable!

That's the one I prefer Olive Bread with black olives and also the sweet Fougassette.

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History and Etymology

In ancient Rome, panis focacius was a flat bread baked in the ashes of the hearth (focus in Latin).

This became a diverse range of breads that include "focaccia" in Italian cuisine, "hogaza" in Spain, "fugassa" in Ligurian, "pogaca" in the Balkans, "fougasse" in Provence and "fouaisse", "fouace" in Rouerge or "foisse" in Burgundy.

The French versions have additions in the form of different ingredients and toppings , which may be regarded as a primitive form of pizza without the tomato.

Fougasse was traditionally used to assess the temperature of a wood fired oven.

The time it would take to bake gives an idea of the oven temperature and whether the rest of the bread can be loaded.

This bread was also the morning snack for the apprentice bakers.

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Uses

It is one of the traditional foods served for Christmas Eve here.

But these days we eat it all the year round!

It is also used to make the French version of the calzone, which can have cheese and small squarish strips of bacon inside the pocket made by folding over the bread.

Other tasty variations include dried fruits, Roquefort (our national smelly cheese) and/or nuts, olives and goat cheese and/or?

Try your own!

It is known by extension as a fougasse even though it is more a sandwich than just a type of bread.

The interpretation depends on the baker and your luck!

But...?

On the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur, I can assure you that if you enter in any Bakery and ask for a Fougasse aux Olives (olive bread) or another type of fougasse, you will have the real thing!

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Videos

On gourmandia.fr with Chef Stephane Raimbault
This recipe calls for flour, yeast, chick-pea flour, milk, water, olive oil, salt, butter, pepper. Garnish with olive paste and hacked olives or small bacon diced and parmesan. A bit complicated though...

On about.com How to Make Fougasse with Natasha Levitan
Another Olive Bread - Fougasse recipe slightly different from mine still delicious!

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