Nothing better than warm bread from your own oven. Well, except maybe bread that has cheese in it! This recipe turns out a crusty, round of soft-crumbed bread which is perfect for dunking into soups and stews or slathering with butter and greedily eating whenever the craving hits you...which could be often.
This recipe is also good with other cheeses!
Notes: Yeast is Fleischmann's.
CHEDDAR MOON BREAD
Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water, 1 tsp. sea salt, 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast, 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese, 1 tsp. ground oregano, 1 scant tbsp. minced garlic.
Makes 1 round loaf.
1. Before you go to bed: Combine flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. (Add salt to one side, yeast to the other.) Pour water in, then stir until you have a shaggy-looking ball.
2. Cover the entire bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and place in a warm spot, like in the oven.
3. When you get up (10-12 hours later): Remove the covered bowl from the oven.
4. Place a Dutch oven with a lid into your range oven and preheat it at 450* for 30 min.
5. Unwrap dough- it will be expanded, wet, and bubbly. Spread the garlic over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle with cheese and ground oregano.
6. Flour your hands and a surface. Gather the dough to "fall" onto the floured surface. Pull up pieces of the underneath to cover the cheese, you are basically just gathering up large pinches and shaping the dough into a pretty ball, as you cover the cheese. If some cheese falls out, it's fine. Place dough ball onto a piece of parchment paper.
7. Open the oven and slide out the rack. Remove the lid of the Dutch oven, then place the dough into it by lifting up the parchment paper and lowering it in. Place the lid on and bake for 30 minutes.
8. Remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes. Allow bread to cool outside of the Dutch oven, still on its paper.