Rosemary White Cheddar Bread and Basil Butter

So, crazy as it may seem, now that my classes have kicked into high gear, I don’t have quite the amount of free time I did before, so I’m not baking, and thus blogging, as much as I used to. This is sad. Very sad. I like making stuff. It’s why I’m going to culinary school in the first place (that, and the dream to eventually own/run a bakery). Anyhow, I had a bit of free time this weekend and decided to make this bread again. I made it back in September and blogged about it here. However, this time I actually remembered to take pictures while making the dough. Crazy, I know.

The dough in the first stage, after mixing some of the flour, sugar, yeast, and warm water.

You then mix in the oil and rosemary.

Once those are mixed in, you add in more flour to form a springy dough. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and kneed a few times. Then kneed in, a bit at a time, the shredded cheese.

Set the dough in a bowl lightly coated with shortening, turning to coat the dough on all sides. Cover the bowl tightly with cling wrap.

Once the dough has had a chance to rise, transfer it back onto a floured surface and gently stretch the sides to form a football like shape. Cover loosely and allow it to rise.

Once it's had a chance to rise, about doubling in size, cut into the dough about a 1/2 inch deep, and place more of the cheese in the crevice.

Bake until it's golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it.

Completely optional (although I don't know why you wouldn't do this) is to melt some basil butter and coat the slices with it before toasting it in the oven.

{Please note, that while these are fairly accurate steps to make the bread, I'd advise reading the recipe to get the full instructions.}

I followed the same recipe with the same ingredient selection (white cheddar instead of asiago and rosemary as the herb) but I used more cheese (how could I resist?) and had better luck shaping the dough into the suggested football shape without killing the hard work performed by the yeast.

I loved the bread last time I made it. I loved it this time as well, which I demonstrated by eating half of it while it was still steaming hot, standing there in my kitchen. I did manage to save some for later, so I decided to toast some of it in the oven after applying a basil butter spread on top. I toasted it until the outside edges were nice and crispy and cruchy and proceeded to gobble it up (forgive the turkey reference, it is November after all).

If you would like the recipe for the basil butter, you can find it here.

I hope you get the chance to make these recipes. They are well worth it.

Have a great week everyone!