Originally Posted by
BamaVol
Tomorrow’s project is a Greek olive bread. The recipe makes 2 loaves but I will try to make one large and 2 small since I want to share with my father in law and my next door neighbor. I will need to be very careful about cooking times. They are free form loaves so I won’t have to worry about loaf pans.
i am a little worried about the recipe’s test for doneness. You tap the loaf on the bottom and listen for a hollow sound?
The hollow sound test is fairly standard, but I admit it's hard to tell for sure simply based on knocking on the loaf.
I'd use a standard time (say, 35-40 minutes for a free-form loaf) and then would use the color of the crust as the primary indicator of doneness (looking for a fair bit of browning and caramelization). You could take internal temperature with a meat probe, but that seems excessive. Finally, you could cut off the oven around 40 minutes and then crack the oven door to let the loaves coast a bit and firm up the insides.