During a fun Labor Day weekend camping in Door County, we stopped at Renard’s Cheese and loaded up on all things cheese.
Besides buying a buttload of cheese curds, I came back with a brick of creamy white cheddar and chive cheese. Which I figured would be perfect to shred and add to a loaf of bread. So I did.
If you can’t find a similar white cheddar and chive cheese, just opt for white cheddar and some fresh chives, about ½ cup of finely chopped chives should do the trick.
Time You Need
- 20 minutes prep
- 2 hours of resting for dough
- ~25 minutes for cooking
What You Need
- 1 cup of warm water (112 degrees)
- 1 packet of fast rise yeast
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 ½ cups of shredded white cheddar
- ½ cup of finely diced fresh chives
- 3 cups of all-purpose bread flour
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp of room temp butter
- 1 tsp garlic salt
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp dried Italian seasonings
- 2 tsp onion powder
What You Do
- In a large bowl, add a tablespoon of sugar to a cup of warm (~110 degrees) water. Stir.
- Add yeast package, cover with a towel, and let the yeast sit for about 10 minutes.
- Then add 3 cups of flour, all your seasonings, butter, olive oil, and chives.
- Mix with a stand mixer or by hand, and form into a dough ball (add more water if the dough is too dry/more flour if too sticky).
- Knead for about 10 minutes. Then rub the ball with a bit of olive oil and place the dough in a plastic ziplock bag, or a large bowl with sealable lid. Cover and let the dough rest for about 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 425 and begin shredding the cheese. Mix the shredded white cheddar and minced garlic evenly into your dough ball. The way I like to do it is to add about 1/3 of the cheese and minced garlic to the top of the dough, then kind of press it into the dough. Then fold the dough over the cheese, and repeat, adding another third of the cheese and some more garlic to the new top of the dough. Fold it over again, so that both cheese layers are completely covered by dough. It creates a kind of swirl effect inside the loaf once the bread bakes. Then shape the dough into a bread pan (or freestyle it), brush with a small drizzle of olive oil. Then add the remainder of the cheese and garlic to the top of the dough, and add a sprinkling of more garlic powder.
- Bake for about 25 minutes. Serve warm with homemade butter!