Snack: 1107 Black Olive Oreo with Double Cream 2005

The Black Olive Oreo is actually the first El Bulli recipe I tried to make. Of course I immediately ran into what I would soon come to recognize as the usual El Bulli issues: sourcing ingredients and time. Now you wouldn't think that finding a 220 gram jar of black olive puree would be all that hard, particularly in a town like Philadelphia with it's long Italian heritage. Just drop by Di Bruno Brothers and pick one up on the way home.

Ha. Not a single one was simple black olive puree. They're all some form of tapenade with all kinds of extra stuff in there. No problem though. I just bought a pound of black olives, weighed out the "right" amount and pureed 'em in my trusty Cuisinart. If you should decide to do the same pick the olives over carefully. Even pitted ones sometimes still have pits in them.

Dehydrated Black Olive Puree

Dehydrating the puree would have been a lot easier if I had an actual dehydrator. Instead I just spread it out on a Silpat, stuck it in the oven at the lowest possible temperature (170F on mine) and and came back 8 hours later.

Flour and Dehydrated Black Olive Puree

Now, the recipe claims that the 220 gram jar of puree will leave you with 170 grams of dehydrated puree. Evidently I dehydrated mine too much because I ended up with about 75 grams. So a little simple arithmetic to recalculate the ingredient weights and it's full speed ahead. In retrospect, I probably should have started again and and weighed the dehydrating olive puree periodically until it hit 170 grams.

Ready to Mix: Egg, Black Olive & Flour, Butter

Everyone into the pool and it's time to mix. By hand. I probably should have just done everything in the food processor, but this was my first El Bulli recipe and I figured who knows, it might make a difference.

Ready to roll

This was also my first opportunity to avoid buying pastry frames. The recipe wants the dough rolled out to 2mm. A nickel is 1.97mm. So I rolled the dough between two sheets of parchment paper to a bit more than the thickness of a nickel.

I've already spent 8 hour drying the olive puree. It now goes into the refrigerator for two days. Remember that comment about time? Yep, this recipe takes almost 3 days to complete. Anyway, when it comes out it's firm enough to hold together. I cut out 4cm disks, put 'em on a Silpat lined baking sheet and slipped them into a 340F oven.

These were in 3 perfect lines

At this point you'll find out if your oven rack is perfectly level. They cook for 7 minutes on a side.

Once they cooled off I just piped some double cream around the edge of the cookie, leaving a space in the middle where

a little blob of olive puree goes.

Not quite as thin as the real thing. But still delicious.

And there you go!

How they taste: like black olive concentrate. We both think they're delicious.

Equipment and Ingredients

The Books: El Bulli 2005-2011 - Yes, freakin' expensive. Check with your local library - they may well be "in the system" and available to be reserved.

Food Processor
Silpat or other non-stick baking mat - Note the various sizes.
A scale that measures in grams
Pastry Ring Cutters

Double Cream - I got mine at Di Bruno Brothers. Places like Wegman's and some Whole Foods will probably have it.
Black Olives - I used Kalamata, they're easy to find almost everywhere. I don't have to tell you not to use the kind that come in a can right?

Note: This recipe appeared in another form on my other blog.