Recipe: Cheese Bread (not sourdough)
Sep. 22nd, 2008 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaThis is my second bread-of-the-month bread -- a cheese bread. Not the kind of cheese bread that's regular bread with cheese melted into it, but bread with cheese baked in for flavor. I decided not to go with a sourdough on this one, because I was experimenting with the dairy (and the dough was pretty wet and dense), so I wanted to keep the yeast variable stable. I may try to make a sourdough cheese bread later.
This recipe makes two good-sized loaves, but it could be halved fairly easily. (This time I made one full-size loaf, to mail off, and three little loaflets about the size you'd get as starter bread at Spaghetti Factory or Outback. This is because an uncut loaf stales less quickly than a cut one, so the bread stays fresh longer if I make it into small loaves that can be devoured in a day or two.) It also uses weight measures rather than volume ones, and even so may take some tinkering, depending on how wet your cheese and yogurt are. If you don't have a kitchen scale, you can find flour and water weight-to-volume estimates online. I've included rough (very rough) volume estimates for the cheese and yogurt.
Place the water in a large bowl. (A note on water: some sources will say to use only filtered water for breadmaking, because chlorine will kill your yeast. I've never had a problem with that. However, bread involves a high enough percentage of water that, if your water tastes nasty, you might want to filter it just so you don't have lingering nasty in the dough. I think our tap water tastes fine, so I use it.) Dissolve the sugar, and then add the yeast. If you're paranoid, wait for it to proof. If you aren't, add the bread flour, semolina flour (if you're using it; if not, an equal weight of bread flour), and salt. Mix, but not quite enough to turn into a ball of dough just yet.
Now add the cheddar (or other firm cheese), parmesan (or other hard cheese), and yogurt, and mix to form a dough. Prod it. If it feels very wet and sticky to the touch, add a little more flour, a quarter-cup at a time. If it feels very dry, though, and the flour isn't working into it, add a little water, a tablespoon at a time. Knead and prod and adjust until you've got a firm, moist-but-not-sticky dough, then knead thoroughly and in earnest (or drop in a mixer or bread machine to do the dirty work for you). When you're done, you should have a smooth, elastic ball of dough.
In a warm place, let the ball of dough rise, covered loosely (say, with a dishtowel) for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 325F. Divide the dough. At very least -- unless you've halved the recipe -- you'll want to divide it in half, in which case you'll have two largeish loaves. I divided it in halves, and then divided half into three pieces, so I had one big loaf and three mini-loaves. You can split it up however you want. Form into whatever kinds of loaves you want and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Let rise for about 30 minutes. Slash the tops with a sharp knife to make them look pretty, and to allow them to rise evenly without tearing.
Melt a couple more tablespoons of butter in a small bowl. Add a couple more tablespoons of yogurt and mix well. (Unless you want a crisp-crusted bread, in which case: don't bother.)
Put the bread in the oven and let bake for about 15 minutes, or until it's formed a crust (and therefore light handling won't instantly deflate it, which would be Bad). Spread on the butter-yogurt mixture. (The couth way to do this is to use a pastry brush; I usually use my [very clean, freshly-washed] hands, though that requires that you work fast or not mind scorching your fingers].) This is instrumental for making a chewy crust, which I really like on cheese bread -- but if you like crisp-crust bread, you should use an egg white instead of butter and yogurt.
Return to the oven and keep cooking until the crusts have just started to take color, or until a thermometer reading hits around 165-170F. (Note that with miniature loaves, this may be not very long at all after you applied the crust coating.) Sprinkle the last of the parmesan on top, distributing evenly over all the bread. Return to the oven and finish baking. At the end, the parmesan should have browned nicely, the rest of the crust should be a pretty golden color, and it should sound hollow when thumped -- or, if you use a thermometer (which I recommend), it should hit 205-210F at the center of the loaf.
Small loaves will cook faster than large ones, so be aware of that. I took the mini-loaves out a good ten minutes before the large loaf. Also, if you halve the recipe, it will cook faster than the whole recipe, because the oven can heat up faster and the air circulate better around a smaller mass of dough. Pay attention, peek through the oven window, watch for overbrowning, and above all, smell the air. Once you've made even just a few loaves, you'll start to notice the difference between the smell of hot dough and of half-made bread, and then the difference between half-made bread and Done Bread.
Remove from the oven. I wrap mine loosely in a towel, which helps both with the freshness and the chewy crust. If you want a crisp crust, you may want to let it cool thoroughly on a rack before you wrap it. I prefer to store my bread either wrapped in a towel or in a paper bag (not plastic wrap, which in my experience encourages mold), but that's mostly because I don't yet have a breadbox.
In the end, it looks like this:
This recipe makes two good-sized loaves, but it could be halved fairly easily. (This time I made one full-size loaf, to mail off, and three little loaflets about the size you'd get as starter bread at Spaghetti Factory or Outback. This is because an uncut loaf stales less quickly than a cut one, so the bread stays fresh longer if I make it into small loaves that can be devoured in a day or two.) It also uses weight measures rather than volume ones, and even so may take some tinkering, depending on how wet your cheese and yogurt are. If you don't have a kitchen scale, you can find flour and water weight-to-volume estimates online. I've included rough (very rough) volume estimates for the cheese and yogurt.
- 10 oz water
- sugar (generous pinch)
- 1 packet active dry yeast (or instant should work just as well)
- 1 lb bread flour
- 1/2 lb semolina flour (or substitute more bread flour)
- salt (generous pinch; less than I'd use for 'regular' bread, because the cheese adds salt)
- 1/2 oz finely grated sharp cheddar or other medium-firm cheese (a couple tablespoons by volume)
- 1 1/2 oz finely grated parmesan or other hard cheese (3-4 tablespoons by volume)
- 2 oz yogurt (a couple tablespoons)
- additional butter and yogurt for the crust, or one egg white if you prefer a crisp crust
- additional 2 tbsp shredded parmesan or other hard cheese for the crust
Place the water in a large bowl. (A note on water: some sources will say to use only filtered water for breadmaking, because chlorine will kill your yeast. I've never had a problem with that. However, bread involves a high enough percentage of water that, if your water tastes nasty, you might want to filter it just so you don't have lingering nasty in the dough. I think our tap water tastes fine, so I use it.) Dissolve the sugar, and then add the yeast. If you're paranoid, wait for it to proof. If you aren't, add the bread flour, semolina flour (if you're using it; if not, an equal weight of bread flour), and salt. Mix, but not quite enough to turn into a ball of dough just yet.
Now add the cheddar (or other firm cheese), parmesan (or other hard cheese), and yogurt, and mix to form a dough. Prod it. If it feels very wet and sticky to the touch, add a little more flour, a quarter-cup at a time. If it feels very dry, though, and the flour isn't working into it, add a little water, a tablespoon at a time. Knead and prod and adjust until you've got a firm, moist-but-not-sticky dough, then knead thoroughly and in earnest (or drop in a mixer or bread machine to do the dirty work for you). When you're done, you should have a smooth, elastic ball of dough.
In a warm place, let the ball of dough rise, covered loosely (say, with a dishtowel) for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 325F. Divide the dough. At very least -- unless you've halved the recipe -- you'll want to divide it in half, in which case you'll have two largeish loaves. I divided it in halves, and then divided half into three pieces, so I had one big loaf and three mini-loaves. You can split it up however you want. Form into whatever kinds of loaves you want and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Let rise for about 30 minutes. Slash the tops with a sharp knife to make them look pretty, and to allow them to rise evenly without tearing.
Melt a couple more tablespoons of butter in a small bowl. Add a couple more tablespoons of yogurt and mix well. (Unless you want a crisp-crusted bread, in which case: don't bother.)
Put the bread in the oven and let bake for about 15 minutes, or until it's formed a crust (and therefore light handling won't instantly deflate it, which would be Bad). Spread on the butter-yogurt mixture. (The couth way to do this is to use a pastry brush; I usually use my [very clean, freshly-washed] hands, though that requires that you work fast or not mind scorching your fingers].) This is instrumental for making a chewy crust, which I really like on cheese bread -- but if you like crisp-crust bread, you should use an egg white instead of butter and yogurt.
Return to the oven and keep cooking until the crusts have just started to take color, or until a thermometer reading hits around 165-170F. (Note that with miniature loaves, this may be not very long at all after you applied the crust coating.) Sprinkle the last of the parmesan on top, distributing evenly over all the bread. Return to the oven and finish baking. At the end, the parmesan should have browned nicely, the rest of the crust should be a pretty golden color, and it should sound hollow when thumped -- or, if you use a thermometer (which I recommend), it should hit 205-210F at the center of the loaf.
Small loaves will cook faster than large ones, so be aware of that. I took the mini-loaves out a good ten minutes before the large loaf. Also, if you halve the recipe, it will cook faster than the whole recipe, because the oven can heat up faster and the air circulate better around a smaller mass of dough. Pay attention, peek through the oven window, watch for overbrowning, and above all, smell the air. Once you've made even just a few loaves, you'll start to notice the difference between the smell of hot dough and of half-made bread, and then the difference between half-made bread and Done Bread.
Remove from the oven. I wrap mine loosely in a towel, which helps both with the freshness and the chewy crust. If you want a crisp crust, you may want to let it cool thoroughly on a rack before you wrap it. I prefer to store my bread either wrapped in a towel or in a paper bag (not plastic wrap, which in my experience encourages mold), but that's mostly because I don't yet have a breadbox.
In the end, it looks like this: