Olive oil bread
See this recipe step by step

Olive oil bread

Follow this simple step-by-step method for a homemade loaf, or adapt to include your favourite flavours

Difficulty and servings

Easy

Makes 1 loaf

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 10 mins

Cook time

Cook 35 mins

plus rising
Freezable

Method

  1. Tip the flour into a mixing bowl. For easy-blend dried yeast, stir this into the flour. For fresh yeast, crumble it and rub into the flour as you would with butter when making pastry. Add the salt and sugar.
  2. Boil the kettle and measure 100ml into a jug. Top up with cold water to the 300ml mark. Test the temperature with your finger - it should feel perfectly hand-hot. Add the oil.
  3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid all at once. Mix quickly using your hands or a wooden fork to make a soft and slightly sticky dough. Wipe the dough around the bowl to pick up any loose flour.
  4. Sprinkle the work surface with flour and tip out the dough. Knead by stretching it away from you, then folding it in half towards you and pushing it away with the heel of your hand. Give it a quarter turn and repeat, developing a rhythm.
  5. When the dough is smooth, put it back into the mixing bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to rest for 1 hr (no need to find a warm place). The dough is ready when it springs back when you press it with your finger. (At this stage, you can add other flavourings - see 'Goes well with', right).
  6. Tip dough onto a floured surface, knead to remove air bubbles. Shape into a round, place on an oiled baking sheet and slash top with sharp knife. Cover and rise for 30 mins. Heat oven to 240C/220C fan/gas 8. Bake for 30-35 mins until browned and crisp.
Try

Make double

Make double quantity of dough and put half into a large, oiled food bag, with room for rising. Leave overnight in the fridge to rise. Bring back to room temperature, then shape, prove and bake as above. You'll have fresh bread for two days.

Freeze ahead

For part-baked bread, reduce cooking time to 25 mins until pale golden. Cool, then freeze. To bake, defrost, then bake for 15-20 mins until crisp and browned. Or, to freeze cooked bread, wrap the cooled loaf in a freezer wrap or a food bag, excluding as much air as possible and sealing well. Label and freeze for up to 1 month.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, April 2011.

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Latest comments and suggestions

Results 21-40

  • Binder photo Perdita

    21 December 2011

    Perdita rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Best recipe I've found. I'm living in the tropics, and can't get strong white flour; this still tastes great and the texture is just right.

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  • Binder photo sjwilkins

    02 January 2012

    sjwilkins rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    OMG! So easy. First time making bread. Shoved all the ingredients into the food processor and let it do the work for me. It made superb bread, both for sarnies and toast.

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  • Binder photo CRISPYJANE

    28 January 2012

    CRISPYJANE rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Brilliant recipe, very easy to do with great results every time. I used half wholemeal flour and half white, so only had the oven temp at 200, (fan oven) which is perfect, and cooked for 30 mins. I also put 10 - 12 ice cubes in a tray in the bottom of the oven to give a little steam, this stops the crust forming to quickly and aids the bread to rise giving a beautiful light bread.

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  • Binder photo Steven Green

    03 February 2012

    Steven Green rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Lovely Bread :)

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  • Binder photo Vikkiekaye

    18 February 2012

    Vikkiekaye rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Delicious! Had as alternative with gammon.

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  • Binder photo Gary Madd

    22 February 2012

    Gary Madd commented on this recipe

    I make this type of bread a lot but with just a 1/4 tsb of salt and always put the full batch in th fridge overnight, this will improve the flavour. Makes great dinner rolls!

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  • Binder photo char11

    25 February 2012

    char11 rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    My first time at attempting to bake bread and definately not the last! This is an easy to use receipe with a great outcome! Lovely bread no doubt will be a regular in our house from now on!

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  • Binder photo Simmy B

    26 February 2012

    Simmy B rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I've made bread before but I have to say this recipe and method is so simple and takes no time at all... no endless kneading. The results are fantastic, a crusty loaf with a light and springy texture - yum!

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  • Binder photo Bethany Sharpe

    28 February 2012

    Bethany Sharpe rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I managed to get this bread right on my third attempt. My first issue was that I wasn't kneading the dough enough, suggest to first timers to knead the dough for 10-15 minutes. My second problem was my fan oven, it was baking the bread WAY too quickly (10 minutes). So it might just be my broken oven, but I've been baking the bread at 160 Celsius. The bread is delicious and looks impressive. It's very simple when you know how to get it right! Will be using this recipe on a regular basis!

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  • Binder photo Patsy

    07 March 2012

    Patsy commented on this recipe

    Excellent. I have always wanted to make my own bread by hand and this one is easy and reliable. It stays fresh for days.

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  • Binder photo Patsy

    07 March 2012

    Patsy rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I make this two and three times a week, it is easy, stays fresh and makes great toast.

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  • Binder photo Mona

    12 March 2012

    Mona rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I made 2 loaves of bread with the amount of flour given in this recipe, enough for 2 meals for our 3 members family. I baked the 2 loaves at the same time and it took me only 20-25 mins in the (fan) oven, I wasn't sure if they were ready so I left them 5 more mins. in the oven already off. PERFECT!!! Nice taste and nice texture. Thanks for this recipe (my first breads) :))

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  • Binder photo John

    14 March 2012

    John commented on this recipe

    Will not rate it at the moment because given all the high ratings I may have gone wrong somewhere. As a few other people have mentioned the top part of the bread started to burn after 30 mins though it wasn't a serious problem. However, the thing that spoiled it was that for some reason the bottom part of the bread was relatively raw so the bread had two extremes: overcooked on top and undercooked at the bottom. Not sure why this happened but I may need to reduce the heat halfway through the cooking process to give it a chance to cook properly.

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  • Binder photo reward50p

    06 April 2012

    reward50p rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Great and easy to do. This was the first time I had tried to make bread and I was very pleasantly surprised with the results.

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  • Binder photo YummyNora

    09 April 2012

    YummyNora rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    It tasted amazing! The only thing that I would say is that the cooking times aren't very accurate. I left the loaf in for even less time than I was supposed to and it still came out really brown.

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  • Binder photo JJ

    19 April 2012

    JJ rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Quick and easy, first time I've made this and I added olives as suggested earlier, very tastey

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  • Binder photo James

    06 May 2012

    James commented on this recipe

    Lovely, simple, honest bread. I can't get enough of it. A note for those who say their bread comes out too brown or burnt - I was having similar problems baking at Gas 8. I invested in an oven thermometer and tested it at gas 8. The thermometer went up to 250c - far too hot. I've found gas 6.5 gives me 220c and the results are much better. Oven temperature markings are not to be trusted. Happy baking.

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  • Binder photo James

    06 May 2012

    James rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • Binder photo Laura

    11 May 2012

    Laura rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • Binder photo Benny

    12 May 2012

    Benny rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I have made bread on and off all my life. This is far and away the best/easiest recipe ever. The first time I made it I forgot the sugar and still got an edible result (though a little heavy). I now make it with half white bread flour and half wholemeal; and swap the amounts of salt and sugar as we don't really do salt. My family who never approciated earlier loaves say that this loaf is better than the supermarkets bread (always the ultimate standard for them and as good as praise gets for me!). I bake this amount of mixture in a 2lb loaf tin as it makes for easier sandwiches with great results every time.

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Difficulty and servings

Easy

Makes 1 loaf

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 10 mins

Cook time

Cook 35 mins

plus rising
Freezable

Ingredients

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