Cheese Bread

The girls and I were home alone last night while Kevin had a work thing to attend. We decided that we wanted to have grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. We worked hard yesterday cleaning the house and the yard and just trying to get things cleaned up before the rain really starts. A soup night sounded perfect to me, but I started thinking how good it would be if we had cheese bread to make out sandwiches out of.

That thought led to this amazingly flavored, easy to make bread. I can see this going into our regular rotation of meals, maybe reincarnated as dinner rolls or a bubble bread sometimes, just to change things up a bit.

Here is how I made it:

Put the warm water, yeast, sugar (I used honey) and salt in the bowl. Mix it up and let it sit for 5 minutes.

When it looks all bubbly and smells like a beer in your kitchen it's time to start adding flour.

When you have added enough flour for it to look like this, about 3 or 4 cups worth, I added the cheese.

I used cheddar here, but I think monteray jack, pepper jack or even mozzarella would be good. Add what you have!

Mix that up and add more flour, until it it starting to come together in a ball. It might still be a little sticky, but that's ok. You're going to add more flour as you knead it.

See all those bits of cheese? Those are going to melt into your bread and leave a delicious flavor.

Turn the bread out onto a floured counter top and sprinkle more flour over the top.

knead for about 5 minutes or until you have a smooth ball. Remember that you are creating gluten here and you need to really get in there. Fold the dough in half and press away from you using your entire upper body. Turn the dough in a quarter turn, fold in half and repeat the kneading motion. Keep doing this until the dough gets quite elastic.

Like this. Now you are going to grease a bowl, I usually use the bowl I made it in because I am lazy and don't want to dirty another dish, but you can use a new bowl. I just spray the bowl with cooking spray and put the dough in. Spray the top of the bread and cover with a towel. Let sit for an hour or until it has raised double.

Turn it out onto the counter and divide into two.

Flatten them out into a rectangle.

Roll up and pinch to seal the edges. Place into your greased bread pans.

Cover and let rise for another hour, or until doubled in size.

Like so. Next you are going to cover them with a little more cheese.

Put them into the oven for about an hour or until they sound hollow when tapped.

Take them out of the oven and remove from the pans. Place on a cooling rack on their sides. This is important, if you sit bread on it's bottom while it is still hot the bread will collapse on itself and that is no good. You have just spent about 3 hours making this bread, you don't want something to go wrong now!

Let it cool, slice off a big piece and pat yourself on the back, you just made some seriously delicious bread!

This is where I found the original recipe: Grandmother Bread

Recipe:

3 cups warm water

1 Tablespoon yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

7 cups flour

3 1/2 cups shredded cheese 

Put the water, yeast, sugar and salt into a bowl and mix to combine. Let it sit 5 minutes. Add 3 cups flour and mix well. Add 3 cups of shredded cheese, saving 1/2 cup for later. Stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can, turn out onto floured counter and begin to knead, adding flour as you need it to prevent sticking. Knead for 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl and cover. Let rise about 1 hour or until doubled in size. Gently punch down the dough and turn out onto floured counter, divide into 2 portions and shape into loaves. Place into greased loaf pans, cover and let rise until double. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. When bread is double sprinkle reserved cheese on top and bake for about an hour or until it sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from bread pans and place the bread on its side on a cooling rack. Let cool before slicing.