January 18, 2011 - 2:55pm
cream cheese/neufchatel questions
I need to use several boxes of neufchatel cheese (was a bargain I just could NOT pass up!). Would really like to use it in bread, but don't want to do the usual filled bread.
Can I use neufchatel in place of butter/oil in bread? Or as part of the liquid? I've got a quick bread that uses cream cheese/neufchatel as a main ingredient, so I'd like to try something similar for a yeast bread. Hmmm...I could convert a quick bread to a yeast bread using baker's percentage, couldn't I?
Thanks,
kat.
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I've never tried using cream cheese as a replacement for other fats, but I can think of a few things I'd try if I had an excess of cream cheese.
The blueberry cream cheese bread here is always a hit and can easily be adapted for whatever kind of berry or fruit you have in your freezer. Cream cheese snails are a bit more work but delicious. And if those are too much work, I'd consider sweetening the cheese with vanilla and a little sugar and then rolling it up in a slightly sweet dough. There is a Chinese bakery in the shopping center with An Dong on 82nd Avenue that sells a bread like that that everyone in my family loves.
Bagels are a good option too. And you can experiment with mixing the cream cheese up with veggies, herbs, or spices like cinnamon and sugar to make some tasty schmears.
Have fun.
Thanks for the suggestions. I've done the filled bread thing (and really like it) - really looking for non-filled bread using cream cheese/neufchatel, though.
kat.
Hi kat, you're right that some recipes use cream cheese in place of butter/oil. I've done this with pound cake, cookies, brownies, and quickbreads. I imagine that it would also be great in a rich sweet yeast dough. And to add Floyd's suggestion, perhaps fill the sweet dough with a cream cheese filling. Yum!
Mimi
Isn't a straight swap for cream cheese; it has approximately 2/3 the fat content so it won't give the same results in baked goods.
Yes, that's true. I like it because it has less fat, but realize it's not an exact substitute for cream cheese. Have to do some thinking on this...
kat.