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Cheddar Bacon Bread

June 27th, 2012

Sorry- this post is up a tad late today. I had some technical difficulties last night. Otherwise known as red wine and mojitos. What? I needed a lot of beverages to wash down the mass quantities of bacon filled food I was eating.

Anyways… On to the Bacon filled food.

Cheddar Bacon Bread is a beautiful thing to behold. Multiple loaves were baked and completely consumed in various ways last night by only a few people.

Yes. I will be attempting to exercise today.

I keep getting side tracked. But, The point is: it is insanely delicious and packed with melted cheddar cheese and little chunks of bacon, which are extra crispy and have actually infused the bread with its bacony flavor. I feel like this is kind of self explanatory in the “delicious” file?

By the way- even though it is homemade bread, seriously it is not hard. At all. I worship homemade bread, it just makes everything better. Plus the summer heat and humidity really seems to get the yeast extra puffy!

Some ways in which I used and abused this bread are coming really soon, but here was a good one:

Toasted, buttered and topped with a fried egg.

To make the bread:

First, rinse a small bowl out with some very hot water. Then dry and fill with the 2 tsp sugar and the packet of yeast. Next, run the tap water until it is very hot, like 115 degrees. Add ½ cup of hot water to the yeast and sugar and set aside.

While the yeast is rising, add the milk, butter, remaining sugar and salt to a small saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Whisk everything until dissolved and add it to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook.

Let sit to cool while the yeast continues rising, the yeast should need about 5-10 minutes to get nice and puffy. When the yeast is ready, add it to the mixer and start mixing.

Add the bread flour one cup at a time to the mixer.

Mix until you have a thick smooth dough, this should take about 3 minutes.

Add the cheese and mix until it is worked into the dough.

Oil a bowl, and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover with a dishtowel and set somewhere warm and draft-free.

Let the dough rise at least one hour, until the dough is very soft and puffy, and then mix the crumbled bacon into the dough with your hands.

Place the ball of dough into the greased loaf pans.

Let the bread rise (with a dish towel over it) another 15-30 minutes until puffed up again. Then bake the bread about 35-40 minutes until the bread is golden on top.

Slice and enjoy!