Garlic and Cheese Bread

My website is up now! Woohoo!

And no sorry, I don't sell bread just yet (but I'll definitely think about it!)

Let's have a look therefore how to make my special garlic and cheese bread. This is perfect for a spicy wintery soup, especially my savoury and warming butternut squash soup...

Check out the recipe below if you'd like to make it too!

Let's get into the recipe for the bread then...

Part 1: Garlic

Ingredients:

• 1x garlic bulb

• 1x tsp salt

How to:

1. Peel and blend your garlic with the salt

2. Fry your garlic in a very small amount of oil, making sure it's nice and soft

3. Leave it to completely cool

Nice and easy to begin with!

Part 2: Bread Making

Ingredients:

• 350g White Bread Flour

• 150g Brown Bread Flour

• 7g Fast Action Yeast

• 320ml Lukewarm Water

• 1x Tsp Salt

• 1x Tsp Ground Black Pepper

• 3x Tbsp Olive Oil

How To:

1. Mix together your two different flours and your yeast in a bowl, adding your water slowly to it

2. Put in your salt and pepper, plus your oil and mix together until it starts to form a dough

3. As the dough forms, add the cooked garlic (once entirely cooled) to the mixture

4. Knead the dough for 15-20 minutes and then set it to prove in a well-oiled mixing bowl covered in a layer of cling film

Part 3: After the 1st Prove

After two hours of proving, here is what you need to do...

1. Grab a roasting tray

2. Oil your mixing tray to make it greaseproof

3. Grab your proving bowl with your bread inside

4. With a tablespoon (which has been oiled) and your hands (which have also been oiled), take a tablespoon of the bread mixture and roll it up into a ball

5. Do this until your mixture is finished and pack the bread balls in not too tightly, but just so they are touching

6. Put the roasting tray into prove for a second time - do not cover it - I would suggest putting it in an oven which is off

Part 4: After the 2nd Prove

After a further hour which would be your 2nd prove, here is what you need to do...

Ingredients:

• Block of vegan cheese

• Ground black pepper to taste

How To:

1. Preheat your oven to 200/C

2. Grate some cheese on to your bread balls, as much as you would feel like

3. Sprinkle some black pepper atop of it

4. Place in the oven for 35-40 minutes

5. Allow to cool completely before warming up again to eat. I cannot stress this enough: do not cut into bread that has just come out of the oven

6. Give it about 20-30 minutes

7. Now...enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this bread recipe because honestly, I have been very excited to share this with you. There is no reason why you cannot dedicated a Saturday to making some lovely cheesy garlic bread. If it was up to me, there would be much, much more cheese but I have to feed other people who are not as obsessed with cheese as I am.

If you do not want to grate cheese atop of it, you can put some cheese in a pan with a few teaspoons of almond milk/coconut cream - one teaspoon of cornflour should start to thicken it into a sauce which is amazing for putting atop of your dough balls once they come out of the oven. That's if you like that sauce-like kind of texture. Unfortunately, that sort of thing reminds me of custard and I do not like custard.

Another variation is to add basil to your dough. If you've got a tomato soup on the go then basil in your garlic bread is beautiful. Overuse it though and it can get sickly so be sparing with it. I find it best if you cook the basil with the garlic, salt and pepper at the beginning because oil releases all of that beautiful aromatic flavour that the basil has. If you are using one bulb of garlic, you want to aim to use about 10g of fresh basil - please do not use that ground up stuff that comes out of a container, you won't get the same taste.

If you do end up trying this out - give me a shout! I would love to see your efforts! ❤️