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cheese

Trishinomaha's picture

King Arthur Gruyere Cheese Bread

May 26, 2008 - 8:43am -- Trishinomaha

Hi all -

I haven't posted lately though I still visit everyday to keep up on what's going on. I just had to share a recipe I made for a family get-together yesterday that was a huge hit. It is the King Arthur recipe for Gruyere Bread. It is essential a yeast bread where the starter is made the night before and the dough the next day. It couldn't have been easier and it is so tasty and is beautiful when it comes out of the oven. I have practiacally none left. Here's the link to the recipe:

ejm's picture
ejm

Cheese Pinwheels made with Baking Powder Biscuit Dough

cheese pinwheels © ejm January 2008

It has been driving me crazy to just throw away the leftovers after feeding our wild yeast starter. Especially as it seems to be in perfectly good condition. I know it's just a couple of tablespoons of flour but still it just seems wrong even to compost it. So now, every time I feed the starter, I have been adding whatever is left over to biscuits or muffins or even bread that is made with commercial yeast.

At first, I was just going to make cheese baking powder biscuits. But then I suddenly thought that cheese pinwheels would be fun. I already knew that adding the left over sludge wouldn't disturb the biscuit dough at all. That's one of the great things about baking powder biscuits. They're so forgiving. Well, pretty forgiving, anyway...

cheese pinwheels

There are some hazards to not measuring... perhaps I added a tiny bit too much cheese. See how it exploded out of the pinwheels in the baking.

Because there was plenty of cheese, these biscuits didn't need any butter, although a little butter was good too. Wheee! So much for adding olive oil instead of lard or shortening to the dough to make the biscuits better for us....

Here is what I did to make the pinwheels:

umbreadman's picture
umbreadman

Three Breads. One Day.

Loaf 1: ~5lb Sourdough High Extraction Miche Type loaf

Loaf 2: Garlic Explosion (Garlixplosion?) W/ Cheese

Loaf 3: Spinach and Feta Cheese with Caramelized Onions.

They were all around 65-70% hydration doughs, all with a small amount of sourdough culture thrown in as a preferment/leavening. The miche was leavened solely by the sourdough, I added some active dry yeast to the other two.

PICTURES!!!

Garlic!! SO MUCH GARLIC!! (Many liked it. A few picked out the cloves. One was weak, and just barely finished her piece. Muahahahahaha!!!) I used shredded cheddar and parmesan cheeses here, since they were already in our fridge, though I think that it would indeed be better with chunks. On the other hand, the cheese that was at the crust gave a fantastically unusually textured, but tasty crust. It was thick, but not hard, and was kinda flakey. I can't really describe it well, but it was very strange/good. I also added dried rosemary and ground oregano to it, but I would very much prefer fresh herbs to dried / powders.

Spinach/Feta/Onion. A little weak on the salty/feta taste. The cheese didn't pack the flavor I was used to from feta cheese, so I think next time I will go with a French feta, as opposed to this greek style, and in a larger quantity. Very spinachy flavor though. This had about 25% chopped spinach, drained, by flour weight. It sprung up well, but I was hoping for a bit more. Maybe longer proof/more yeast next time.

Spinach Exterior. A bit dark. I've found that my loaves get quite dark before they're fully baked, and I wait longer with the temperature turned down at the end after at hot start. Maybe if I started it at a lower temp? Or turned it down sooner?

Inside the MICHE! This guy was huge. I think 5lbs of dough is my largest boule yet. This one took quite a while to bake, I think it was over an hour. Since I'm baking for a lot of people, I figured I would make this unflavored bread in a large amount. Aaaannndddd I felt like one loaf would be easier to deal with than 2-3. Hence, this. Someone said it was the size/weight of a newborn child. I think I'll name it alfred.

It surprised me. I slashed it in a circular sort of 8pointed compass style, and it expanded beyond that, splitting down the middle. You know alfred, I'm sorry I even tried. Clearly you didn't want to cooperate, so you went and did your own thing. I thought it might look nice the way I cut you, but no, you HAD to disagree. Now you look like some kind of tribal, african mask, and I can't even claim that it was my idea.....oh how can I stay mad at you? You're so tasty.....(i think alfred is now 2/3 of its original size...ish.)

The Triforce. Garlic in front. Spinach to the left, Miche on the right. Hungry onlookers out of frame.

I would really like to figure out how to have the bread color and be fully baked at the same time. I've been using a stone and preheating to about 425-450 or so and then turning it down about 15-20 minutes in....which might be my problem. Maybe if I start it slightly lower, or didn't wait so long to drop the temperature...

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