Cheese & Herb Pull-Apart Bread

I love making bread. It's not hard but it does require some time. I do own a bread machine which I find very convenient. However, the bread machine so far has never been able to produce breads as tasty as when I make them by hand. This is a personal favorite of mine and can be done fairly quickly (in bread time). It took me roughly 2h30 from start to finish to produce this beauty, most of this time inactive on my part.

The title says it all. It's a bread which is layered with cheese and fresh herbs. It's great freshly baked or completely cooled. Although I specify the kind of cheese and herbs used, you can be creative and use whatever you like. This recipe is adapted from the mammoth recipe book 1001 Essential Recipes.

Ingredients

• 7 or 8 g of dried active yeast
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp of chopped fresh chive
• 1 tbsp of fresh thyme leaves
• 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
• milk to glaze

Step 1: Activating your yeast

Mix your yeast with the sugar and 1/2 cup of warm water. Leave in a warm place for roughly 10 minutes, until the yeast starts to foam.

before

after 10 minutes

Step 2: Making the dough

Mix the flour and the salt together. Don't forget (very important) to pour the flour in your cup and shave off the excess with a knife. If you don't do this you risk having too much flour.

Make a well in the center and add the yeast mixture along with 1 cup of warm water. Either knead the bread by hand for 10 minutes or use a stand mixture with the hook attachment. If your dough is too dry, add a bit of water. If too wet, add a bit of flour. The dough should be moist but not sticky to the touch.

Roll your dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a plastic wrap and let it stand in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size.

While that's rising you can start grating your cheese and chopping your herbs. Mix them all together in a bowl.

After 1 hour, your dough should look like this.

Punch it down and knead for a minute. Cut your dough in four and divide each portion into 5 pieces. You should have in total 20 pieces of dough. Don't worry if they are not all exactly the same size. It won't really matter in the final process.

Flatten each piece of dough with the palm of your hand to form a disc and press some of the herb & cheese mixture in the middle.

Flatten another piece of dough into a disc and place it on top of the first disc. Add some cheese & herbs to that disc and continue this process until you've used up all of the dough and you're left with a leaning tower of Pisa.

Lightly squeeze the dough together and place it into a greased bread pan. Cover with a plastic wrap and let it stand for 30 minutes. Start preheating your oven to 425ºF.

After 30 minutes. Uncover the bread and brush the top with milk. This step will encourage the Maillard reaction and give your bread a nice brown crusty top.

Place in your preheated oven and bake for roughly 30 minutes. Carefully unmold once down to let it cool on a wire rack or wooden cutting board. Eat it plain or with some butter. It needs little embellishment.

This bread smells amazing and tastes just as good.