Recipe: Wood-Fired Kalamata Olive and Sun-Dried Tomato Bread

With the weather battering the house recently and there being little prospect of making it into the garden to get any jobs done, what else could be better than making some fresh, wood-fired bread in the oven of our Little Range Cook Stove!? A perfect excuse to experience the joy of preparing some fuel for your tiny stove with your trusty little axe, before lighting a nice warm fire and combining some simple ingredients to conjure the magically evocative aroma, and taste, of freshly baked bread!

Ingredients

  • 500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
  • 15g/½oz crushed sea salt
  • 55ml/2fl oz extra virgin olive oil
  • 20g/¾oz dried yeast
  • 275ml/9fl oz water and one clove of crushed garlic
  • 10 turns of a quality black pepper mill
  • 170g/6oz black Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
  • 55g/2oz sun-dried tomatoes, from your garden if possible

Lighting Your Small Wood Burning Stove

Before you can do any baking in the oven of your small wood burner, you’ll need to have lit the stove and brought the oven up to baking temperature (the orange section on the Range’s thermometer). To do this, take an axe and make a small pile of kindling wood. Combine the kindling with 2 wood wool firelighters and place it in the middle of your stove’s firebox.

Next, you can then open the bottom door and light the fire, leaving the top door pushed to but not fully closed. After about 30 seconds, close the top and bottom door, leaving the air controls fully open. If you start the fire nice and small then this will quickly generate heat in the flue pipe, which will initiate the draw. On the other hand, overloading the fire will produce smoke but little heat, and the draw will be slower to start.

Once the kindling is burning well, you can start to add a few small logs, building up the size of the fire in stages. For best results, we recommend that you use good dry hardwood logs, such as ash, beech or oak. We have found that combining the pressed sawdust eco-logs along with some dry wood logs will give you the best results, and it will produce higher and much more consistent oven temperatures! Once you’ve got a good fire going and the oven has heated up, you can then follow the steps below.

Method

  1. Mix all of the ingredients (apart from the olives and tomatoes) in a large bowl. Take care not to put the yeast in direct contact with the salt when they are first added to the bowl!
  2. Knead well with your hands and knuckles until the dough is elastic, smooth, and shiny. Cover with a piece of cling film and leave to rise for one hour. Placing the dough in front of a warm fire is the perfect place to leave it to prove!
  3. Divide the dough into two, add half of the olives and sun-dried tomatoes to each dough.
  4. Mould both the doughs into roughly round shapes and press down firmly. Sprinkle white flour lightly over the top and mark them with a cross.
  5. Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper (silicone paper) and prove for one hour in a warm place.
  6. Bake at mid orange on the Little Range’s oven thermometer (220C/425F/Gas 7) for 35 minutes until golden-brown. You may need to rotate the bread 180 degrees halfway through, as the oven temperature on the right hand side is slightly higher due to it being located next to the firebox.
  7. Remove your freshly baked bread from the oven and leave it to cool on a wire rack!

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Our Hobbit Stove Has Been Fitted!

"We had a Hobbit stove fitted this week by Alex Reay from Flues and Fires, and I just wanted to get in touch to say it is AMAZING and we love it! We have a lovely cast iron tiled fireplace which I was desperate not to lose when we installed a small wood burning stove, but until I found the Hobbit on Google, everyone told me it would be impossible to keep the fire surround. The Hobbit is perfect - not only does it fit very snugly, but it looks fantastic and the blue door complements the tiles very nicely. We are sitting enjoying a fire now and absolutely loving it! Thanks for creating such an amazing product."

Nicola Williams

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First Small Stove Installation

Was looking for a small stove for my first self-install. Found Mark very helpful. Knowledgeable, friendly service. Stove burns well and generates lots more heat than the previous open fire. What is not to like?

Sam

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A Huge Thank You!

"Dear Mark and Gill, a huge thank you for designing and making the Hobbit stove! We had two different London-based fireplace companies tell us that we simply had to knock out the old cast iron and tile fireplace to fit in a woodburning stove, and that there was no other option! Then we found you online. We are delighted with our little Hobbit, which swallows up logs and kicks out a good amount of heat. Perfect for the winter! I will also be writing to the London-based fireplace companies to put the Hobbit on their radar. Best wishes."

Nat

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Alan

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Roger T

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Derrick

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The Little Hobbit Has Stepped Up To The Challenge!

"We just wanted to say how impressed and how much of a life saver our little Hobbit has been! It was fitted a few months ago in our holiday home in Rhu, Scotland, which is a large open plan conversion in a Victorian house. This weekend our boiler decided it was not going to play ball. The little Hobbit has stepped up to the challenge, providing heat to a very large area, about twenty eight foot by twenty four foot with a high ceiling of about eighteen foot, keeping the room reasonably warm, warm enough for us not to use cardigans!”

Alan W

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Neil

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Andy

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"What a fantastic fireplace with the beautiful Hobbit stove. It fits perfectly into the small space and throws out a lot of heat. Here's a photo of our little stove, now our pride and joy and much admired by all who see and feel the warmth."

Chris and C

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Fantastic!

"Just to bid you all a Happy New Year and to say how much we’re enjoying having our Hobbit stove! It was easy to fit with the help of your excellent ‘how to’ videos and we’re just awaiting our inspection by building control for the certification. The Hobbit has fitted neatly into the hearth vacated by the old gas back boiler (with a little cosmetic rendering) and never ceases to surprise us how much heat it can deliver to the point that the new condenser boiler is having an easy life, thereby saving us on gas bills too! Everyone loves having a ‘real fire’ in the living room."

Philip Baird

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"The stove we bought from you is really starting to come into its own as the weather cools down. Here is a photo showing how much one of our dogs is enjoying it!"

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Brilliant Product!

"Just wanted to share a picture of our newly installed Hobbit. Absolutely delighted with it, and so pleased we were able to retain our existing fireplace as well. Brilliant product, thank you!"

Marion

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