A fusion of Turkish bread, focaccia and lavosh, it can be served with or without cheeseboard-esque sides – after all, it’s filled with half of them already!
Sydney food writer Bec Vrana Dickinson’s new cookbook Happy Hour Snacks is an entertainer’s guide to simple, delicious snacks to serve with your favourite drinks.
Inside you’ll find 80 recipes split into chapters based on cravings: salty; spice and smoke; zest and tang; and cheese.
Here, Vrana Dickinson shares her clever overnight recipe for lax loaf with the lot. It packs in the flavour, incorporating herbs and spices, cheese and olives all in one versatile recipe you’ll have on rotation all summer long.
Lax loaf with the lot
Right, you’re going to have to get off the couch the night before you plan on presenting this Picasso piece. I know, it feels like a push, but don’t worry – it’s easy. We can all be talented bakers when we make a no-knead bread.
I envisioned this recipe as a fusion of Turkish bread, focaccia and lavosh. And that, it has become. Serve with or without cheeseboard-esque sides because it already comes filled with half of them anyway.
INGREDIENTS
- 600g bread flour
- 7g dried yeast
- 500ml (2 cups) lukewarm water
- 100g hard cheese of your choice
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
- 1 tablespoon nigella seeds
- 2 teaspoons caraway seeds
- 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
- 125ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing and serving
- 80ml (⅓ cup) sesame oil
- 150g pitted mixed olives
- bunch of oregano, leaves picked
METHOD
- Combine the flour and yeast in a large bowl. Add the water and give it a really good mix to combine into a shaggy dough. Cover and stand in a warm spot for 15 minutes to give the yeast a chance to activate.
- Meanwhile, cut the cheese into small chunks. Combine the sesame seeds, nigella seeds, caraway seeds and salt in a bowl.
- Add the cheese to the dough with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, 1 tablespoon of the sesame oil and half each of the seed mix, olives and oregano. Mix with your hands (it feels nice) until smooth. Cover and leave in the fridge overnight, or for 8-12 hours.
- Take a deep 20 × 25 cm baking dish and grease well with olive oil. Tip in the dough and use your fingers to spread it to the edges. Cover and leave for 2-3 hours in a warm spot until doubled in size.
- When it’s looking almost there, heat the oven to 200C fan-forced (220C conventional).
- Now create dimples in the dough with your fingers, then stud with the remaining olives and oregano. Sprinkle over the remaining seed mix. Drizzle over 60ml (¼ cup) of the olive oil.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and hollow when tapped on the base. Immediately drizzle over the remaining olive oil and sesame oil. Let the bread cool for 5 minutes in the dish, then remove and cool on a wire rack.
- Slice and serve with more olive oil for dipping and any extra sides you feel like.
Serves 8-10 as a snack
*Substitutes
Nigella seeds – extra caraway seeds/black sesame seeds
Caraway seeds – fennel seeds/cumin seeds
Oregano – rosemary/thyme
This is an edited extract from Happy Hour Snacks by Bec Vrana Dickinson, photography by Chris Chen, published by Hardie Grant Books.
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