Seedy Herb and Olive Flatbread

This is a variation on my basic bread recipe. I first had it in a posh restaurant, and spent an obsessive couple of weeks trying to figure out how to make it. This is a great thing for bringing to potlucks and dinner parties, because it's dangerously delicious, impresses everyone, and costs very little money or effort.

Ingredients

1 cup warm water

2 teaspoons active dried yeast (or one of those little packets)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/3 cup pitted black olives, sliced

2 1/2 to 3 cups bread flour

half a stick (2 oz or around 50 grams) salted butter, melted

1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped finely

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup pumpkin seed kernels

Whisk the first three ingredients together in a large bowl. Leave for ten minutes in a warm place until the yeast starts going into fluffy bubbles.

Sprinkle the salt over the mixture and add the olive oil, dried herbs, and olives. Give it a stir.

Now add 2 1/2 cups of flour and stir with a wooden spoon to form a ball of sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a generously floured counter top and knead the dough for around 5 minutes, adding the extra half-cup of flour little by little to stop it sticking to the counter. You know you've kneaded it enough when the dough is smooth and satiny-textured and doesn't stick to the counter or your hands.

Wash and dry your bowl, then coat the inside with a little oil. Place your dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a clean towel, and leave it in a warm place until the dough has roughly doubled in size. Depending on how warm the warm place is, this can take as little as 30 and as many as 120 minutes. If your oven has a bread proof setting, you can put it in there. Make sure that you use a metal or glass bowl if you do this.

When the dough is risen, knead it again briefly to get some of the air out. Shape it into a large, flattish loaf, around 8x10 inches. Place it on a baking sheet that you've covered with baking paper. Leave it in a warm place until it's approximately doubled in size.

Heat your oven to 430 Fahrenheit (220 celsius). Lightly brush the top of the loaf with olive oil, and put it in the oven for 10 minutes.

While it's baking, melt your butter in a small pot and cook the garlic in it for 30 seconds or so on medium-high heat until it's fragrant. Remove from heat.

Now take the bread out of the oven, and flip it over using tongs. Using a bread knife or another large sharp knife, cut about 10 deep slashes in the surface of the bread, lengthwise. You don't want to cut the bread into pieces, but the knife should go around halfway through the loaf. It doesn't matter if the loaf loses a bit of height; it's supposed to be a flat bread.

Pour the butter-garlic mixture all over the loaf so that it runs down into the slashes. Sprinkle the sunflower and pumpkin seeds all over the top of the loaf. Put it back in the oven and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the seeds are golden brown but not burnt.