Everything IS better with Cheddar!

The finished cheesy loaves

     
     As mentioned last week, during my cooking/baking extravaganza, I made chili and cornbread and this lovely cheese bread.  I knew from the start that I would love this bread, seeing as I love pretty much anything with cheese and I like to add cheese to pretty much everything.  This is why it will be important for me to maintain the habit of exercising vigorously  as I am just not the dieting type.  Who trusts a skinny chef right?  Bread is honestly something that I don't think I could live without, this cheese bread included. 

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     When I was flipping through The Tassajara Bread Book (TBB) deciding what I wanted to bake, I was a little startled to come across this recipe.  I have this feeling when it comes to baking from the TBB, that everything is healthy and wholesome, so it was somewhat shocking to see a recipe that included 3 cups of cheese, 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of melted butter. But, if you are using this bread to make a sandwich and skip the cheese and mayonnaise, (because there is cheese and butter in the bread itself), you have probably balanced things out.

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     What I am learning more and more as I get older (and I have been feeling a little bit older lately) is not some new nugget of information that I have never heard before, but something that I have heard from almost everyone I know of a certain age; "everything in moderation".  So I guess I will skip adding cheese to a sandwich on a cheesy loaf, or better yet, eat the cheese and walk an extra mile to compensate.

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The bubbling yeast doing it's magic

Adding the cheddar

Rolling the dough to fit the bread pan

#14 Cheese Bread

From the Tassajara Bread Book

3 cups lukewarm water

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup dry milk

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups unbleached flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup melted butter

3 cups grated Cheddar (or other strong favored cheese)

3-5 cups whole wheat flour as required to form the dough and knead it

Proceed with directions for recipe #1, stirring in the beaten eggs after the dry milk, and folding in the grated cheese after the salt and butter.

The Perfect Sandwich Bread...a blogette

Potatoes!

    

     I am a little behind in my blogging (a baking backlog if you will) so this is going to be a shorter blog.  Jake came up with the name “blogette” for a substantially shorter baking blog (like baguette, get it?), so that’s what this will be.  After the excess, extravagance, and expense of the holidays, it seems rather fitting to have blogette about simple sandwich bread.

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After making the sweet, chocolatey, eggy Challah bread, I was excited to make a basic sandwich bread.  Recipe# 5 in the Tassajara Bread book, is a Potato bread, which is to me one of the best sandwich breads around. It is moist enough to create a soft sandwich, but not too soft to get completely soggy.  This bread is made by boiling potatoes until fork-soft and then mashing them and folding them into the dough after the first rise, and the oil and salt have been added.  These loaves were quick to go in our fridge, and I found myself craving a sandwich almost daily.  This bread also makes excellent French toast (almost rivaling Challah French toast), as it is very absorbent and sops up the egg/milk/cinnamon mixture with ease.

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Potato Bread 

Tassajara Recipe #5

2 cups warm water
2 packages dry yeast
¼ cup honey
1 cup dry milk
3 cups unbleached white flour


4 teaspoons salt
¼ cup oil
1 ½ to 2 cups cooked mashed potatoes
3 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup or more white flour for kneading


Dissolve the yeast in the water.


Stir in the sweetening and dry milk (it’s ok if it’s a little lumpy)


Stir in the 4 cups of whole wheat flour to form a thick batter.


Beat well with a spoon (100 strokes).  Duck the spoon down along the side and carry it over, keeping the dough in one piece.


Let rise 45 minutes.


Fold in the salt and oil and the mashed potatoes.


Fold in an additional 3 cups flour until the dough comes away from the side of the bowl. 


Knead on a floured board, using more flour (about 1 cup) as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board (about 10 minutes), until the dough is smooth.


Let rise 50-60 minutes until doubled in size.


Punch down.


Let rise 45-50 minutes until doubled in size.


Cut the dough in half and knead each half about 6 more times.  Roll the dough into a log, pinching the seam along the bottom half.  Place the loaf seam side up in a greased pan and then flip over so the seam is on the bottom.


Brush top of the loaves with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water).

Bake in the oven at 325 degrees for about an hour, until golden brown.


Remove from pans and let cool—or eat right away.

 

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