Asiago Cheese Bread

It probably comes as no surprise that I like cheese bread.  I've already made a Cheddar Cheese Bread back in January.  Lately, I've been craving Asiago - so I found a recipe at Seasons and Suppers and (of course) adjusted it.

Asiago Cheese Bread

Ingredients:

• Dough
• 14 oz bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2.5 Tbsp sugar (white or brown) or 1.75 Tbsp honey or agave
• 1/2 C lukewarm water
• 1/2 C (plus 1 Tbsp) milk or buttermilk
• 1 pkg (7 g/.25 oz/2.25 tsp) Active Dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp butter, melted
• Filling
• 1.5 C Asiago Cheese
• 1/4 C butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or about 2 tsp. minced fresh) - Optional
• 1/4 cup minced herbs (parsley works well) - Optional

Instructions:

1. Mise en place!
   
2. Melt the 2 Tbsp of butter and set aside to cool.
   
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, salt, and sugar.
   
• Note: If you're using honey or agave, add them to the liquid ingredients instead of the dry.
4. Warm the water and milk to ~105°-110°F.  Add the yeast and let it bloom for 5-10 minutes, until it is bubbly on top.
   
5. Add the yeast mixture and cooled melted butter to the flour mixture.  Using the dough hook, mix the dough for 2 minutes.
   
6. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
7. Continue kneading the dough until it is smooth, soft, and tacky.
8. Turn the dough into a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel.  Let rise somewhere warm until doubled (about 90 minutes).
   
• For me, somewhere warm is my oven.  I turn it on to the lowest temperature for a few minutes and then turn it off.  You can also just turn the light on, if you have one.  It will be enough warmth to encourage your wee yeasties to rise!
• Alternate: If you want, you can cover the dough and put it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days (according to the original recipe).  I haven't tried this yet, but I'm sure I will.  A long, cold proof is supposed to be amazing for the flavor of the bread.  If you opt for the refrigerator proof, bring it out about 2 hours before you'd like to work with it, allowing it to come to room temperature before the next step.
9. Lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out.  Roll it into a rectangle about 10" by 16".
10. Spread the softened butter across the whole rectangle and cover with cheese, garlic, and herbs.
• I opted to just do cheese and lots of it!
• Note: I did too much cheese and too much butter!  Stick to the recipe...
11. Starting on the shorter side, roll the dough into a tight roll and pinch the final edge closed tightly.
12. Grease or line a 9x4" loaf pan and place the bread in, seam side down.
    
13. Cover and let rise somewhere warm until over the rim of the pan.
• Again, I used my oven as a proof-box.
14. Remove the pan from the oven!
15. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
16. Bake for 45-50 minutes.  Cover with foil if the bread is browning too quickly.
17. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan before trying to remove.
18. Remove bread and let cool at least an hour on a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!

You'll notice the cheese seemed to sink to the bottom... and I think I used too much butter.

Using up special ingredients: Blue Cheese Crackers

Have you ever bought a "special" ingredient for a recipe and not needed it all?  So what do you do with the leftovers?  I'm frugal, so I hate to waste anything - so I go searching for a recipe (or an idea) to use it in a new and creative way.

Last weekend's Bacon and Blue Pierogies required 4 oz of Blue Cheese.  Because I wasn't totally sure about the amounts, I bought an extra wedge as backup.  Which meant that I've had blue cheese sitting in my fridge for a week - calling my name.

I've made these crackers before - they are a play on a savory shortbread.  I love them.  This time I adjusted the size to be more bite-sized.  I think I prefer them smaller!

Blue Cheese Crackers

Ingredients:

4 oz blue cheese, room temperature

4 Tbsp butter, room temperature

3/4 Cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

1. Mise en place.
• I've said this before.  Get your stuff together before you start cooking.  This recipe has 5 whole ingredients... I think you can manage.

  

  Look closely.  See something wrong here?

  

  I might have gotten excited to make the recipe... and forgot to take pictures until the end!

2. Cream together the blue cheese and butter
• It is really important that both be room temperature.  They won't combine very well if they're not. Trust me - leave them out on the counter for a few hours before trying to make this.
3. Mix in the flour, black pepper, and cayenne.
• Fresh ground black pepper.  Please please please - use a pepper mill or a spice grinder.  Don't buy ground black pepper in the little tin at the grocery store.  Trust me - the flavor is completely different.
• Cayenne.  Use as much or as little as you can handle.  My husband and I both love spicy things - so I'm generous with it.  But it's totally up to you.  But don't skip it unless you're allergic!

  

  Here's a funny picture of my empty bowl!  It's the best I could do!

  
  
4. Prepare the dough.
• For small crackers: split the dough in 1/2 and put into 2 sandwich-size ziptop bags.
  For large crackers: put the whole batch into 1 sandwich-size ziptop bag.
• Squish it all the way to the bottom and roll to form it into a small log.
• Seal the ziptop bag and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours or the freezer for 1 hour.  You need the dough to be very cold in order to slice nicely.

  

  This is after it's chilled, but you get the idea...

  

  For reference, this is 1/2 the dough making small crackers.
  

  

  To give you a sense of how small the log is...
  

5. Slice the coins and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
• Cut the log of dough into 1/4" thick coins.
  
• Parchment make this a very easy clean up.
• I got about 20 small crackers from 1/2 the batch.
  
6. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes.
• Watch them closely and pull them out when nicely browned.
  

  

  5 minutes
  

  

  10 minutes
  

  

  15 minutes
  

  

  20 minutes

 Tadaaaa!  Used up my leftover blue cheese and now have a nice snack for the weekend!  They are light and crispy and tangy with a nice little bite from the blue cheese and peppers.

Hope you enjoyed this quick little recipe!  Come back and visit next weekend when I spend some more time practicing in my kitchen.

Homemade Pierogi Part 2: Assembling, cooking...and EATING!

When we last met our intrepid heroes... er... cooks...

Last night, we left you hanging.  We had packed up our ingredients and put them in the fridge overnight.  It was late on a Sunday and I had to be up early on Monday.

So then on Monday evening, we worked together (hubby helped!) to assemble and cook them all!

Date night in our kitchen

1. Form the pierogi.
• This took some patience.  Like... a LOT of patience.  Hubby was better at this than I was.
• Let the dough warm up before starting.  We were anxious to start and tried to play with cold dough.  It was not happy.
• We used my new pasta rolling attachment for my stand mixer.  Lots of places will tell you that the dough is too tender for this, but we were careful to not overwork it.  It came out beautifully.
• Roll the dough until it is about 1/8" thick.  Try to keep the flour on only one side of the dough.  Trust me.  It's important.
  
• Cut into circles.  We have a little gadget to do this, so we tried it.  It was almost more frustrating than helpful.  Cut circles: use a glass, or a biscuit cutter, or a cookie cutter.  Anything round.
  
• Scoop a SMALL amount of potato and cheese mixture into the middle of the circle.  Trust me - go smaller than you think you need.  I had a tendency to overfill them and had a very hard time getting them closed.
  
• Top with some bacon bits.
  
• Fold over and seal tightly.  This is tricky.  You really need them sealed completely or the filling will come out when you boil them.  I recommend wetting your finger and running it around the inside edge before folding them closed.  This will help form the seal.

  

  This is what happens when you do not use flour on the outside of the dough.  OOOPS!

• Pinch the edges closed with your fingers or a fork.
  
2. Boil.
• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil.
• Lower a few pierogi in the pot at a time.  Do not crowd the pot.  Better to do this in batches.
• When they float, they're done.  This seriously only takes a couple of minutes - tops.  Fresh pasta cooks very quickly.
• Put the boiled pierogies on a wire cooling rack to drip dry and cool.  Do not do what I did and think that wax paper would help.  We lost 3 beautiful pillows of fluffy yumminess to the evil Wax Paper monster.
  
3. (Optional) Store for refrigerator or freezer.
• If you are planning to store them, you can absolutely bag them up.
• Allow them to cool completely.
• I wrapped them in wax paper (now that they're cool) to keep them from sticking to each other.
• Put in a ziptop bag and put in the refrigerator for up to a week (HAH!  As if!!)
• If freezing, I've read that it's better to freeze them on a sheet tray all laid out flat.  Once frozen, you can transfer them to a ziptop bag.  This is all to avoid them sticking together.
  
4. Sauté.
• Melt butter in a sauté pan.
• Add a few pierogi, taking care not to crowd the pan.  Crowded pans = steaming, not sautéing. They won't get all crispy brown and yummy.
• After a couple of minutes, gently turn over to the other side to brown.
5. Serve.
• There are plenty of ways to serve pierogi:
• Browned butter
• Caramelized Onions
• Applesauce
• Sour Cream
• Hot sauce (if you're my husband)

They were wonderful.  The dough is very tender and light. The filling was subtle with blue cheese (hubby and I agreed that we both wanted more blue flavor next time).  It was perfect with a bit of browned butter and a small dollop of sour cream.

I hope you enjoyed this longer adventure in my kitchen!

Let me know what you liked and what you might like to see next!

Homemade Pierogi Part 1: Preparing the pieces

Oh yes, you're reading that correctly!  Today we are finally tackling a project I've been dreaming about for months.  MONTHS, I tell ya!

If you've been reading my posts this past week, I walked you through my process for selecting the various ingredients and adjusting this recipe for my preferences.  Check them out:

• Monday: Making Choices in the Kitchen
• Tuesday: Blue Cheese
• Wednesday: Potatoes
• Thursday: Bacon
• Friday: Flour

Which brings us to today.  Time to put it all to work and make the star of the show:

I was inspired by Bacon & Blue Cheese Pierogies from SugarDishMe. With a couple of changes (which was the point of the whole last week of posts):

• I decided to use the Pierogi dough recipe from Tasting Poland.  As is mentioned there: "Usually we make the pierogi dough without eggs as ingredients. However, in some recipes there are eggs, and indeed, they are used in some Polish households. The truth is that the addition of whole eggs (or just yolks) to the pierogi dough makes it more rigid when cooked. For most people it is not an advantage, so we recommend using the traditional recipe, without eggs. It results in a softer dough, which – despite its delicacy – will not fall apart."  I also prefer that it is a simple dough without sour cream or yogurt added.  We want the stuffing of these pierogi to shine here.
• For the filling, I made several adjustments:
• No onions (and therefore, no olive oil)
• No mushrooms (YUCK!)
• Different potatoes
• Different cheese
• But I'm keeping the traditional American bacon

Ingredients:

• Dough
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/2 tsp oil
• Filling
• 3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1/2 cup milk
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 8 strips bacon
• 4 oz Gorgonzola cheese
• Finishing
• Butter for sautéing
• Sour cream for topping
• Additional bacon bits and Gorgonzola, if desired

Instructions:

1. Gather your mats (I play World of Warcraft.  Mats is short for materials.)
   
2. Cook your bacon.
• You can fry it on the stovetop or bake it in the oven.  I chose the oven method because it meant I could be prepping other pieces while it cooked.  I also find it less messy.
• Line a baking sheet with foil (don't skip this step or you'll be cursing me when you clean up). Place a cooling rack on top of the foil so that the bacon will be held up out of the dripping grease.  Bake @ 400° for 15-25 minutes.  The length of time will be determined by how crispy you like it, how thin or thick your bacon is, and how hot your oven is.  I had thick cut bacon and cooked it for 20 minutes.  In the end, I wish I'd cooked it a wee bit longer to get it more crispy.
  
• When it's done, it'll look sooooo pretty!  Crispy and sizzle-y and still nice and flat!
  
• Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate and let it cool completely.
• Chop into bite-sized pieces to be put inside the pierogies.
3. Make the filling.
• Peel and cut the potatoes into even sized pieces.
• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Be gentle with the salt.  It's important because this is when you're going to get flavor inside the potatoes, but remember we're adding blue cheese and bacon which are both salty.
• Add the potatoes and cook until just tender.  They won't be cooked much longer in later steps, so they should be at the texture that you prefer.  I choose to leave them short of mushy because I like the soft-but-still-holding-together potatoes.
• Note: If, like me, you don't have a pot big enough for all the potatoes, cook half at a time and keep the peeled-but-not-cooking potatoes in a bowl of cold water.  This will prevent them from oxidizing (which is a fancy word for turning brown because of contact with oxygen).
  
• Drain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
  
• Add the milk, fresh ground black pepper, and 4 oz of blue cheese.  If you want the cheese to completely melt in, add when it's still piping hot.  If you'd rather the cheese still have some larger chunks, wait for the potatoes to cool slightly...but it should still be warm.
  
• Taste it.  Add a piece of bacon and taste it again.  Make sure that there is enough salt and spice for your tastes.  Be very careful with the salt.
4. Make the dough.
• Put the flour and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer.  It is totally possible to do this without one, but I love how much easier doughs have become now that I own one!
  
• Pour 3/4 cup boiling water into the flour and vigorously stir/mix.  It doesn't look like dough yet.  Trust the process.
  
• Cover the bowl with a tea towel and wait 5 minutes.
• Pour 1/4 cup cold water into the mixture and vigorously stir/mix. Still looks odd.  It'll get there.
  
• Cover the bowl with a tea towel and wait 15 minutes.
• Add 1/2 tsp oil (I used olive oil) and knead. Knead knead knead. Generally 5-10 minutes.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished dough! I ended up adding a bit of water to bring it all together.

At this point, we packed up our ingredients and put them in the fridge overnight: dough into a ziptop bag, potatoes stayed in the bowl covered with foil, bacon pieces in a sandwich size ziptop bag.  It was late on a Sunday and I had to be up early on Monday.

Tune in next week!  Same Bat time, same Bat Channel!

(Just kidding... the rest of the instructions will be posted tomorrow!)

I am a sucker for Cheese Bread!

So if you know me in real life, you know I looooooooooooooooove cheese.  Mac-n-cheese. Grilled cheese. Cheese in my grits.  Cheese on my pasta (forget the marinara, just put cheese on mine). Cheese.

Cheddar. Bleu. Parmesean. Havarti with dill. Pepper Jack. Port Wine cheese spread. Cream cheese. Mascarpone. *dreamy sigh*  You get the picture, yes?

I'll try any cheese at least once. :)

So I'm working on perfecting a gooey, soft, fluffy, cheese-y cheddar yeast bread.  I've been studying various recipes to find things that I like and have created the below recipe.  Yep.  This one is MINE.  (Although, I'm sure there are similar ones elsewhere... there are only so many adjustments you can make to a bread recipe.)

You'll notice I've added a lot of text in italics.  This is how my brain works...I'm talking to myself (and now you) as we go through the steps.

Jenn's Cheese Lover's Bread

Ingredients
1 packet Dry Active Yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
3+ Cups All-purpose (AP) flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 Cup water
1/3 Cup milk
3 Cups grated cheddar cheese

Note about the cheese: I always use sharp or extra sharp cheddar.  This is a cheese bread and I want to TASTE the sharpness.  Larger grates is best.  Again, you want to SEE and FEEL and TASTE the bits of cheese.  This is not a time to use finely grated.  In my not-so-humble opinion.

Instructions
Don't be daunted.  There are lots of steps, but they aren't hard... it's just how things go with yeast breads, usually.

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer (it's easier if you have one, but if you don't, a big mixing bowl will do), combine 1 Cup of flour (the rest gets added later), yeast, sugar, and salt.
   You'll notice that the salt is in with the yeast here.  This is generally a no-no when you're blooming yeast, but since we are mixing with flour, too, it's ok.  It won't kill it.  But for other yeast recipes, if it calls for blooming the yeast in water first - it should be water (or milk) and yeast and sugar only.  The sugar feeds the yeast as it wakes up.  Salt stops that from happening correctly when blooming.  Which we're not doing... so we don't have to worry.
2. Heat the water and milk to approximately 120° F and add to the dry mix.
   This is super important.  Get a thermometer and USE it when working with yeast.  I've spent too much time being disappointed because I either killed the yeast with water that was too hot, or didn't wake it up with water that was too cold.  Trust me.  Measure the temperature!
   
3. Beat for 3 minutes.
   It will be sticky and not look like a bread dough at all.  That's because we're not done adding flour!
4. Combine 2 cups cheese with 1/2 cup of flour and add it to the mixer bowl.  Beat for another 2 minutes.
   Whenever you're adding something "wet-ish" to a bread or muffin batter, coat it in flour first.  It helps keep the 'something' suspended in the batter or dough and should prevent it from sinking to the bottom.  Like blueberries in a muffin, or chocolate chips in a cake, or cheese in a bread.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Slowly add in the remaining flour (1.5-2 cups) in small amounts, letting it be incorporated completely before adding more.
   This is where you have to really pay attention.  I cannot tell you if you're going to use 2 3/4 Cups or 4 Cups.  It depends on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen or in your city.  It depends on your flour or the method you used to measure it out.  Just go slowly here and stop adding when it looks like a good dough.  It's always better to stop too soon, because you can ALWAYS knead in more flour, but once the dough is dry, it is a complicated process to rescue it.

   

   +1/2 cup flour (2 cups total so far)

   
   

   

   +1/2 cup flour (2.5 cups total so far)

   
   

   

   +1/2 cup flour (3 cups total so far)

   
   

   

   +a smidge more flour... looks good to me!

6. Using the dough hook on your stand mixer (or using elbow grease if you don't), knead the dough for 5 minutes.  It should be smooth and elastic-y.
7. Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured surface and knead in the remaining 1 cup of cheese.
8. Form your dough into a nice, smooth ball and put it in a clean, greased bowl.  Cover with a tea towel and place somewhere warm (but not hot) to rise for an hour or until doubled in size.
   If it's cold where you are, turn your oven on the lowest setting and set the bowl on top of the stove. Just don't go crazy with the heat - you don't want to start cooking the dough yet!
   
9. Once risen to double the original size, punch it down and divide the dough.  This recipe should make one 9x5 loaf or 1 large braided loaf or 2 smaller braided loaves.  Once in the pan or formed into braids, cover again and let rise for another 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Again, it should double in size.
   This is where you get to decide what you want it to look like!  If you want to try the braiding, divide the dough into 3 or 6 equal portions, roll into similar size ropes (12" or 18" long), and then braid 3 strands together.  If you're using loaf pans, plop the dough neatly into a greased 9x5 pan.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Optional: Brush the top of the bread with an egg wash (1 egg white beaten with 1 Tbsp water).
    This will add a transparent, shine to the top of your bread.
11. Bake.  For braids, 350° for 20-25 minutes.  For loaf in a pan, 375° for 25-30 minutes (cover with foil after about 15 minutes to prevent over-browning).
12. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.
    
    
    
    

We cut into the one I topped with cheese (the other loaf is going to work tomorrow)...

It's light and soft and cheesy!  I'm in heaven.  And I'm betting it'll be even better toasted!