cheesy olive-y bread-y recipe

Hey Y’all!

Many of you have asked me about ‘the’ bread, so I decided to dedicate my first blog ever to revealing my cheesy olive-y bread-y recipe for all to see.

These instructions are merely suggestions… Please do make it your own and figure out ways to kick it up a notch.

Ingredient list for Cheesy Olive-y Rosemary-y Deliciousness Bread… makes 2 loafs:

Flour - 4.5ish cups (all purpose unbleached white 2.5ish cups and whole wheat 2ish cups)

Eggs -2

Salt – tbspoon-ish

Olive oil – a skosh

Black olives – apx 1 cup chopped

Crushed rosemary – to taste (2 tbspoons?)

Water (1.5 cups @ warm apx 100 degrees F)

2 packages dry active yeast (4.5 tsp.)

Sugar – 2 tbspoons.

Shredded cheddar cheese (I recommend Tillamook and obviously the more the better)

Time: 15 minutes of ‘work’ over 1.5ish hours elapsed from start to finish.

Directions:

1. Wash hands, roll up sleeves, put on your bread-baking/dancing shoes
2. Warm the water in the microwave or on a stove. Transfer to mixing bowl.
3. add yeast packets… mix well and let sit 5 minutes to activate (dice olives during this time)
4. After 5 minutes, add eggs, sugar, salt, rosemary, and olive oil. Stir well with a fork-like object and break up the egg yokes.
5. Slowly add flour to mixture as well as olives (so they distribute evenly). Mix well with forkish-like implement at first and then with clean hands as the dough solidifies. Have a friend/spouse/helper monkey add more flour as needed. Finished dough should be firmish/squishy, easily moldable and not especially sticky. Mix thoroughly and make sure you touch it with your (clean) hands to get the feel.
6. Leave dough in bowl, cover with a clean towel and set aside in a warm place until dough doubles in size (roughly ½ hour at 100 degrees F).
7. As dough-rising nears completion, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and get the cheese from the fridge. Grease your baking sheets/bread pans with a generous, but not silly amount of olive oil.
8. Fun part: Punch the risen dough down and knead it for a while. Divide the dough into two equal parts and play with it some more. Shape it how you wish, but longer and thinner formations means that it will bake more thoroughly. Work some shredded cheese into the dough, but try to keep it centered in the dough as it tends to adhere to the baking sheets during cooking. (Cutting the dough into three rolled segments and braiding it is an advanced technique worth trying out later).
9. Place dough on/in oiled baking sheet/bread pan and drizzle olive oil / sprinkle cheese over/on the top. Place in oven on center rack and bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes (until crust is golden brown). Feel free to add more cheese to the top half way through. Bake until the outside of the bread turns into a golden brown color, the cheese bubbles a bit and your home is filled with the delicious fragrance of bready goodness.
10. Carefully remove the bread from the oven and let cool a few minutes before transferring to a cutting board and serving. Turning the oven off is the important last step that I always forget.
11. Add some salted butter to the top of a slice of bread and be prepared for your tongue to freak out and demand more.

All the best and enjoy!

BS!