I am a total carb freak! I love bread. Sweet bread. Cheesy bread. Bread bread BREAD!! I could eat it all day everyday. Seriously, my boyfriend has to stop me from eating just toast for dinner. So, needless to say, when I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen I was beyond excited! I had planned on making this to eat with the delicious chili I had made, but failed to read the instructions completely (which, embarassingly, happens way too often.), so, we had it for "dessert".
Instructions:
Bread
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 1/3 beer (the recipe calls for dark beer, but you can use whatever you have around)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/3 cup rye flour (use additional all -purpose flour if you don’t have this)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (or 1 envelope) instant yeast
1 teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs, room temperature
Filling
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Dijon or a mustard of your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash of hot sauce
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Several grinds black pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar
Make dough:
1 - In a small saucepan, heat the 4 tablespoons butter and 1/4 cup of beer, just until the butter has melted. Remove from heat and add the remaining 1/3 cup beer. Set aside to cool down slightly. You want the mixture warm (110 to 116 degrees), but not steaming hot.
2 - Meanwhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together 2 cups of the all-purpose flour, sugar, yeast and table salt. With the mixer on low, pour in the butter-beer mixture, mixing only until the flour is moistened. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. The batter will look lumpy, but will become smooth in a moment. Add the remaining 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and all of the rye flour, mixing until just combined. Replace paddle with a dough hook and let the machine knead the dough for 3 to 4 minutes on low.
3 - Oil a medium/large bowl and transfer dough to it. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set aside for 50 to 60 minutes, until doubled. Meanwhile, prepare fillings.
[Do ahead: You can also rest the dough in the fridge overnight -- wrapped tightly with plastic. The next day, let it rest at room temperature for an hour before rolling out.]
Make fillings: (I did these next two steps right before it was time to roll out the dough.)
1 - Back in the same small saucepan you used for the butter and beer, melt the 3 tablespoons butter. Remove from heat and whisk in mustard, Worcestershire and hot sauce until smooth. Set aside.
2 - In the bottom of a medium bowl, stir together mustard powder, paprika, table salt and several grinds of black pepper. Add shredded cheddar and toss until grated strands are evenly coated with spices.
Assemble bread:
1 - Either coat a 9-by-5 loaf pan lightly with butter or a nonstick spray and set aside.
2 - Turn dough out onto a well-floured counter and roll the dough into a 20-by-12-inch rectangle, making sure it doesn’t stick to the counter by lifting sections and re-flouring the counter as needed. Brush the butter-mustard-Worcestershire mixture evenly over the whole surface, right up to the edges. Cut the dough crosswise into 4 strips (the original recipe says five strips but I did 4 and it worked out fine. Also, later, when cutting the stacks, it makes it easier); each should be 12-by-4 inches. Sprinkle the first one evenly with a heaping 1/4 cup of the grated cheese. Gently place another strip on top of it, coat it with another heaping 1/4 cup of cheese, and repeat with remaining strips until they are stacked 5-high and all of the cheese is used.
3 - This is how the original recipe instructs you to do this next part: With your very sharpest serrated knife, gently — so gently! The lightest sawing motions the weight of the blade will allow! — cut your stack into 6 to 7 2-inch segments (each stacked segment should be 4-by-2 inches). I used my pastry cutter to do this part and it worked great!
4 - Arrange stacks of dough down the length of your prepared loaf pan as if filling a card catalog drawer. This was made easier by standing my loaf pan up on its short end.
5 - Loosely cover the pan with more plastic wrap and set it aside to rise again for 30 to 45 more minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.6 - Bake loaf for 25 to 35 minutes, until puffed and brown. Transfer it to a wire rack and let it cool for 5 minutes before flipping it out onto a serving plate/cutting board.
This is best to serve warm because it pulls apart better. However, if you serve it cold it can be sliced.
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