Oven Temperature and Olive Bread

Some of my breads have not been baking like I'm used to; thinking oven temperature might be the culprit, I bought a new oven thermometer. Sure enough, the oven is running significantly lower than it is set for. This morning I set the oven for 475 degrees to bake olive bread but when the preheat beeper sounded, the thermometer read 400. When I cranked the oven up to 500, 30 minutes later, the thermometer only read 425 degrees. I think this is why some of my no-knead breads are not rising as much as I'm used to. Not much I can do about this other than switch to other recipes that don't require such high temperatures; its getting a bit warm back here in MD anyway so its a good time to cool my cooking:)

This olive bread recipe is from my favorite bread book: My Bread by Jim Lahey; this is one of my favorite breads from this book of no-knead recipes. Since it is no-knead, the rise times are longer; 1st: 18 hours; 2nd: 2 hours.

400g bread flour; 200g kalamata olives; 3g instant yeast; and 350g water. Even with a deficient oven (and maybe deficient baker:), this bread tastes great!

New Cooper-Atkins oven thermometer received high ratings on the Internet.

Olive bread after 2nd rise and just before putting in my hot Emile Henry dutch oven.

Olive bread cooling on the rack; not how it isn't very tall.

About an hour out of the oven. Tastes great - moist, chewy, and nice crust. The olives would be less crowded if the bread had risen more.