February 20, 2017 - 10:11pm
How do you mix cheese to a sourdough bread!
Hello all! Question let's say I'm making a sourdough boule how would I add cheese to the dough? So that when u slice the bread its in the crumb but not in chunks sorry if I could not explain well but any help would be appreciated thanks a lot TFL.
- steven
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You'd do so when performing the stretch and folds so it gets incorporated.
I figured so lol but wanted to be sure .. Thanks for the reply!
Sometimes at first it seems that add-ins won't incorporate but with every stretch and fold, with rest in-between, it incorporates better. Cheese, I imagine, won't be difficult but with other things like nuts and raisins etc it takes a few stretch and folds.
Would that be grated cheese ?
It sounds like you want grated cheese - just mix it in when making the dough, however small cubes (or big cubes!) might be nicer for some breads - I regularly make cheese loaves and incorporate cheese cubes (about 10mm each side) at the shaping stage. but also a little grated cheese when making up the dough - I was a mildly cheesy crumb with chunks of semi-melted cheese!
These photos are from my "Beetroot Bonfire" breads - a sourdough boulle which is made with beetroot juice. The cheese cubes are added after the bulk ferment as I shape it into a boulle:
It's am amazing colour, if nothing else :-)
-gordon @moorbakes
Gordon,
How did you make this terrific looking bread? Can you share the recipe and how you made it? Someone here at work (Hi Joe) is also going to make it. What does the crumb look like? Excellent job!
Thanks, Dwayne
Colours can be deceiving, and for a while I was struggling to make beetroot bread that had a pink interior, however thanks to a hint via twitter from Duncan at http://www.thethoughtfulbreadcompany.com/ in Bath, I had a clue..
The trick is to use freshly squeezed beetroot juice. Even then, beetroot juice isn't "bake stable" and will go pale during baking.
For that loaf, I used 100% freshly squeezed juice in-place of water. It's my every day basic recipe here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/44111/easy-sourdough-part-1 I made 3x the quantity and divided the dough into 4 for medium size loaves.
This is the juice with the starter floating in it:
After that it was the same as usual - mix/knead/leave overnight, scale/shape/prove/bake...
Before baking:
This is the crumb shot - it's slightly disappointing with regard to colour, and the cheese was probably cut into too-big cubes. It tasted great though!
Baked:
The other beetroot breads I baked last autumn had grated beetroot in them - personally I prefer them, but there was demand for the beetroot bonfires when beetroots were in season (I got a big box directly off the local organic farmer)
Those are a tricky make as the juice comes out of the grated beets when mixing, so it needs a lot of tuning with the hydration. The dough is then the same pink colour, but no-where near as pink when baked, but you do get the intense red streaks of coarsely grated beetroot. Next autumn I think I'll stick to just grating the beets plus cheese. Juicing is fun, but messy!
-Gordon
Gordon,
Those details will help a lot. Nice experiment and research that you did. Well done.
Dwayne
As others have said, you can put grated or shredded cheese in when you make the dough. This will give you a loaf with small bits of cheese distributed fairly evenly. However, if you want distinct streaks or a swirl of cheese, you should incorporate the cheese when you shape, and you may also need to shape differently from usual.
I've also mixed small cubes (very roughly 1 cm) right into the dough and been fine with the results. I don't recall using much larger pieces than that, and I've only ever used fairly hard cheeses like cheddar, so I can't vouch for what will happen with much larger chunks or softer types.
It's also not strictly either/or. For instance, I've made loaves where I put grated / shredded cheese into the dough, then added chunks later and also put some shreds on top for the last few minutes.
I make a cheese & onion bread that is an enriched sourdough with added dry yeast. For the cheese - first I cut the cheese into little cubes (about 1 cm or 1/2") and freeze them in a plastic bag. On baking day, I dump the required weight of cheese cubes into my food processor (still frozen) and pulse until the cheese is ground into various sizes. Some will be in little crumbs, other bits are still chunky.
I mix everything up at once. I dissolve the starter in the water and milk (with a bit of honey), then add the flour, salt, yeast, cheese and onion bits and mix it all up. The result is a soft dough with cheese throughout the dough as well as a few little melty pockets of cheese, and no leaking! I don't like big holes in my bread where the big cubes of cheese used to be, so this way I can actually get more cheese flavour into the bread.
cheese can be rubbed into the dry flour before mixing .
.. to the OP that is - made some cheese breads yet?
I make them every Thursday for my customers, and as that's today, and remembering this thread, I took a few photos to show the way I do it.
I start with the dough - overnight fermented yeasted dough, Nothing special here, made with white bread flour and a portion of semolina. made with water & olive oil to about 62% hydration - just use a tiny bit of yeast and leave it overnight.
So tip out the dough and divide into 3 and pre-shape into boulles...
Next we gently de-gas them in-turn and cover with cheese cubes:
Fold over and a bit more cheese...
Then I gently stretch and fold the left & right bits in, roll it up and put in the bannetons to prove.
After proving:
Tip out onto a piece of baking parchment that's the same size as an oven tray (GN 1/1), and criss-cross slash:
Finally bake and turn out to cool:
Hope that gives you some inspiration..
-Gordon @moorbakes in Devon