The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Asiago-Cheddar Cheese Egg Sourdough

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Asiago-Cheddar Cheese Egg Sourdough

    This was going to be bread for my wife's stuffing this weekend, but the impending snow storm has postponed our family dinner and the need for stuffing.  Not to mention she informed me she wanted a simple white bread and challah bread anyway, so I will be happy to eat this tasty cheesy, eggy bread all by myself.  No complaints here as this turned out excellent.  This bread tastes like cheese since I mixed both cheddar and Asiago cheese into the dough before it went for its overnight slumber in the fridge.  I think this method really distributes the cheese flavor throughout the entire bread.

I have to say the crust came out nice and chewy and the crumb was open and soft.  This bread is a keeper and is good enough to eat without any additional toppings.

I used my standard trusty AP starter at 65% hydration refreshed per below.

AP Starter

227 grams AP Flour

71 grams AP Seed Starter

151 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.  You can either mix in final dough or put in refrigerator for at most 1 day before using.

Main Dough Ingredients

425 grams AP Starter from above

130 grams First Clear Flour

290 grams European Style Flour (KAF--you can substitute AP or Bread Flour)

100 grams Durum Flour

25 grams Potato Flour

80 grams Grated Cheddar Cheese

40 grams Grated Asiago Cheese

142 grams Whole Egg Beaten (3 large eggs)

262 grams Water at Room Temperature

15  grams Olive Oil

18 grams Seas Salt or Table Salt

Directions

Mix the flours, oil, water (hold back 50 grams for later) and eggs in your mixer or by hand for 1 minute. Let it rest covered in your bowl for 10 minutes.   Next cut the starter into small pieces and put into the bowl on top of the dough and let it rest another 10 minutes covered.  After the autolyse is complete add the salt and the rest of the water as needed and mix for 3 minutes on low to incorporate all the ingredients.  The dough should form a sticky ball at the end of 3 minutes mixing.  Now add the cheese and mix for 1 additional minute to incorporate all of the cheese throughout the dough.  the dough will be rather sticky but resist the urge to add more flour.

Next take the dough out of the bowl and place it a well oiled bowl.  Do several stretch and folds in the bowl and rest the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  After the rest do several more stretch and folds in the bowl and cover the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Do one more stretch and fold and let it sit at room temperature covered for 2 hours.  Feel free to do some additional S&F''s to build up more gluten strength.  After 2 hours you can put the dough into the refrigerator for 24 hours or up to 2 days before baking.  I baked the bread about 14 hours later.

The next day (or when ready to bake) let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1.5 - 2  hours.

Next, form the dough into your desired shape and put it in a floured basket  or bowl and let it rise covered for 1.5 to 2 hours or until it passes the poke test.

Score the loaves as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 30 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 450 degrees.    When the loaf is golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 205 degrees F. you can remove it from the oven.

Let it cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours before digging in if you can wait that long.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CLEO, COSMO, LUCY, MISTY AND MOOKIE!

Comments

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Ian,
There sure have been some dazzling breads posted in the last couple of days, and yours are no exception :^)
Sorry to hear about the bad weather postponing your dinner - but this beautiful cheese bread must have been really delicious, to enjoy in the meantime...
The scoring is gorgeous and the offset cuts remind me of a beautiful loaf in this post (see the second picture, dark brown oval loaf at the front).
The oven spring of your loaves really shows the beauty of this scoring pattern.
Happy New Year to you - and the kitties!
:^) breadsong


 



 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you so much Breadsong!  I have never seen that post and that's some beautiful scoring for sure.  Happy New Year to you and your family.  It's been a pleasure to read about your inspiring bakes as well.

Best,

ian

Syd's picture
Syd

Some fine looking baking Ian.  Would be a pity for such a beautiful loaf to play supporting role to a roast turkey.  Just as well it never made it into the stuffing.  I would say that snowstorm was quite fortuitous.  

All the best for the New Year,

Syd

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Than you Sid.

I'm pretty happy to eat this bread all by itself without the turkey!

hope you have a great New Year.

Regards,

Ian

MarieH's picture
MarieH

I'm not sure which is better - the bread or the cats!  Both are awesome. Thanks for sharing...

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you Marie.

life wouldn't be the same without my furry friends.  Bread helps too!

have a happy New Year.

Regards,

Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

as good as it is, to beat Hats on Cats.  Love the scoring and the spring really brought it out. Love the crust and crumb and that cheese taste has to be great.

Nice baking Ian and Happy New Year!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks DA.

while this year has been a tumultuous one for me and many people I know I can honestly say it has been an honor and a pleasure to make so many good friends like you through this site. I really enjoy being inspired and pushed to aspire to try new things in baking.  Here's wishing you and your family a healthy and happy New Year and I hope we can continue our  exploration of all things food in the new year!

regards,

Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I'm guessing we will be getting pretty good at this baking bread thing.  It is always a pleasure to find good bread baking friends and, more times than we like, it is a good thing to put a hard year behind us.  Next year we will meet, hopefully not in an auto parts store, and see what we can put in some kind of new bread that tastes and looks good :-)  On the bright side - the world didn't end on 12-21-2012!  This panettone has me more worried more than the end of the world did :-)

Wishing you and yours and your apprentices well  in the coming New Year.!

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Ian, nice scoring on the left loaf!  Both have nice scoring but I have never seen scoring like that one.  Very very nice.  Does the egg flavour come through?  I know the asiago must come through as it is a very strong cheese.  Yum!

I was planning to do some JH Poolish Baguettes with added whole grain flours today, but I have no idea what will come out from it.  As I was using my tare function on my diital scale, it malfunctioned in the middle of adding the main flours.  I had to play guessing games as to how much was already added and how much I still needed to add.  What a mess!  I am going with dough feel at this point and hope it all turns out.  The last thing I need as I am still in learning mode with baguettes.

With breads like yours, I am sure you do not run into these amateur flubs.  How stressful!

John

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks John.

I wanted this bread to be a cross between a egg style challah and a traditional lean SD.  The eggs did add a nice texture and fluffiness to the bread.

Trust me regarding the flubs when I tell you we are all suseptical to the same types of disasters no matter how good you are.  The sign of a good baker is to adapt like you have and make the best of it.  Worse case is you have some squirrel food:).

appreciate your feedback and keep baking and trying new techniques as you will be surprised how easy it becomes with practice.  

Have a healthy and happy New Year.

Regards

Ian

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

And a happy New Year to you as well Ian!  Have a sip of wine, cheese, and slice of this fine bread for me :)

John

varda's picture
varda

Ian,   Truly beautiful scoring.   An inspiration.   -Varda

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you so much Varda.

Like I said to DA above, I am so glad I am part of this amazing group of inspirational bakers like yourself.

I hope you and your family have a healthy and happy New Year.

Regards,

Ian

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I love the combination of ingredients.  Lovely tender and tasty looking crumb.  What beautiful kitties...lovely eyes!

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Sylvia

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thanks Sylvia.

Appreciate your kind words.

I do have to say I had to retouch Cleo's eyes since the camera turned them red.  I think I may have gone a bit overboard with the blue!

Anyway, Happy New Year to you and your family as well.


Regards,

Ian

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Ian, 

Great kitty shots :-)  How you got them to wear hats is beyond me.  My dogs won't even let me do that...

Bread and scoring are beautiful.

 When I first did a cheese loaf I was afraid to let it do a bulk ferment overnight for fear of the cheese causing it to turn into goo due to the proteins in it BUT I did it anyway because that is how I bake *-) and I was very surprised to find that the results were similar to what you discovered.  I think the cheese adds strength and the dough is always luxurious in the morning.  A joy to handle and shape and I always get a really nice oven spring with great aromas wafting through the house....

Time to check out my Sesame Cheese recipe....I was wondering what I was going to do with the left over cheese I have in my freezer that my husband had from a potato dish he made.....Should have know I wouldn't have to wonder long!

Thanks for the post and inspiration,

Janet

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you Janet for your kind words.

It is not easy to get most of my furry friends to sit still.  The key is a 2 person team with me getting clawed holding the cats down while my wife frantically tries to take the photos!  Some of them are more cooperative than other as you can imagine.

I have made cheese bread this way by adding the cheese in the final minute of mixing and also by adding it jelly roll style.  I find this way the cheese flavor is evenly distributed, but if I want the cheese to be more oozing out I would add it right before baking.

I hope your next cheese bread turns out well.

Have a happy and Healthy New Year and I look forward to conversing with you throughout 2013!

Regards,
Ian

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Really great looking bread, Ian! Your skills have come a long way since you joind TFL.  There is absolutely nothing that i don't like about the breads shown above, crust , crumb, scoring pattern!

An inspiring finale for 2012, Ian, well done

Happpy new year,

Khalid

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank You Khalid.

I have learned so much through participating on this site while meeting inspirational bakers like yourself.

I hope your back is healing quickly and you will be pain free and ready to bake for the new year.

It's been a pleasure to get to know you and I wish you and your family a Healthy and Happy New Year.

Regards,
Ian