Herbed Cheese Pull Apart Bread

This is my first blog entry on bread baking .I’ve never baked bread before and I am a novice at baking. With blogging I intend , if not to master the art-"the art of baking", to at least elevate myself from the status of a novice to the “I know something about it “stage. I saw pictures of pull apart bread and really loved the stacked, what I call the rustic look of the bread. But I had no intentions of making it in the near future -lily-livered, nurtured by the thought of baking a stack of neatly burned bread at the behest of my beginner status regarding baking.

So when Aparna announced her We Knead To Bake  , I quote her “A bread baking series of baking a bread a month, together, as a group of food bloggers” I was happy and jittery at the same time. So I followed the recipe meticulously and I was surprised My Bread came out well! I was overjoyed ….My first bread baking attempt brought fruitful results and a spark to bake more…You can see my pull apart bread here-:

The recipe is easy and you can play around with the filling. You can innovate, mix and create your own filling. Besides that you don’t have to bother about the shape as the bread should look truly rustic.

It’s eggless and hey it can come apart in slices without having to use a knife in cutting it.You can bake the sweet or savoury version. If you would like to go with a sweet filling, just omit the garlic in the baking and add 1/4 cup sugar to the dough while kneading. It’s fine if you don’t have a loaf tin. You can use a Bundt pan or cake tin instead. I baked a savoury version. Here goes the recipe-:

Ingredients

Warm Milk-1/2 cup

Sugar-1 tsp.

Active dry yeast-2 tsp (I used Instant Yeast)

All purpose flour-23/4-3 cups

Salt-1 tsp

Milk-3/4 cup and couple of tbsp. to brush bread

Butter-25 gms or 2 tbsp soft at room temperature

Garlic-2 cloves crushed or 3/4-1/2 tsp garlic paste

For filling

Melted butter-15 -20gms

Mixed herbs-2 tsp

Processed cheese-1/2 cup

Crushed pepper and chilli flakes-enough to sprinkle

Method

In a small bowl dissolve sugar and yeast in ½ cup of warm milk. Keep aside for 5 minutes till yeast mixture bubbles up.

Mix the flour,salt,softened butter and garlic paste.

Then add the yeast mixture and ¾ cup of milk. Knead till dough becomes smooth and elastic. If the dough is sticky add a little more dough but only little or as much as necessary.

Make into a ball. Place into a well oiled bowl turning the dough around to coat it completely with oil

Cover and let to rise for 1-1/2 hrs or till double in volume

Dust your work surface lightly with flour.

 Deflate the dough, shape it into a square and roll the dough out into a larger square that is about 12’ by 12”.

Brush the surface of the square with the melted butter. Evenly sprinkle the herbs, pepper/ chilli flakes and then the grated cheese. 

Use a rolling pin to very lightly press the topping into the dough to ensure the topping doesn’t fall off when you are stacking the strips.

Using a pizza cutter, slice the dough from top to bottom into 6 long and even strips – they do not have to be perfect.

 Lay each strip on top of the next, with the topping facing upwards, until you have a stack of the strips.

You can put the 2 strips cut from the sides in the middle of the stack so it looks neater. Using a pastry scraper or a sharp knife, cut straight down through the stack dividing it into 6 equal pieces (6 square stacks).

Grease and lightly flour a 9” by 4” (or 5”) loaf tin.Layer the square slices, cut sides down into the loaf tin.

Cover the loaf tin dough with a towel and allow the dough to rise for an hour. Lightly brush some milk over the top of the loaf.

Bake the dough at 180C (350F) for about 30 to 40 minutes until it is done and the top is golden brown. This recipe bakes one 9” by 5” loaf.

Refer video for assembling :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guo8NdCNtBM

         This recipe is YeastSpotted.