I love Christmas.  People tend to be in a joyful mood and many people wear their red and green.  I usually  don't wear red, but for one month, I go overboard.  This year I was trying to develop a non-sweet festive sourdough since I really don't eat Pannetone. The combination of these ingredients are very different, but they work as a savory bread.  So, if you're looking for a sourdough for your avocado toast, bacon and eggs or as a side to your entree etc.  this savory Christmas sourdough bread is worth trying. 

Dried barberries and green olives are the ingredients that make this savory Christmas sourdough festive.  The dried barberries bring some tart and the green olives brings some saltiness to the bread and together, they make and interesting and wonderful combination. 

 I also changed the technique to allow the sourdough to extract much of the micro-organisms in the wheat germ for maximum nutrition.  It may take extra time to proof, but it's well worth the increase in nutritional value.

Tips for making Savory Christmas sourdough bread.

Adding Inclusions.

Dried barberries

Dried barberries are a mediterranean ingredient.  I incorporate dried barberries or Middle eastern zereshk. One of my middle eastern neighbors brought rice with these barberries, and I just kept picking them out to eat. They are small and tart with just enough sour to make it interesting, and an incredible addition to the bread!  However, if these are hard to come by in your neck of the woods, substitute for dried tart cherries, tart cranberries, dried pomegranate seeds etc. Just a word of advice, read the nutrition label.  A low sugar dried cranberry may be loaded with artificial sweeteners! 

The size of the berries are perfect since they are so small, they tend to permeate throughout the bread making it really festive with the green olives.

Since you want these berries to be uniformly distributed throughout the bread, it is best to add it during the stretch and fold process. This allows the berries enough time to be fully incorporated into the dough.  However, add this before the third stretch and fold, because you want the dough to build strength first before you add these berries. Adding it too early will break some of the dough structure, resulting in a bread that may not rise well.  Adding it at the end will result in a swirl of berries which may look good but would really be a mouthful of tart barberries!

Green olives.

Green olives are somewhat salty.  I find that the most vibrant green olives are found at grocery stores that have an olive bar or deli.  Bottled olives are brined a lot longer and as a result, the color is not as vibrant.  If you are able to get green olives at the olive bar in your grocery store, make sure that they are pitted! (Pits removed)  Otherwise, it will be a lot of extra work to remove those pits.  Slice the green olives.  Usually, with a salty ingredient, I would add this during the pre-shaping.  However, since these green olives are mainly for color, and the bright green olives tend to be less salty (less marinated) than the paler green olives, I incorporate these during the stretch and fold process.

If you've tried making this bread, let me know what you think about this festive savory Christmas sourdough bread in the comment section.