Recipe: Nam's Cheddar Garlic Bread

I've been baking bread for a few years now, and I've baked this about half a dozen times in the past couple of months for holiday events. I've gotten enough feedback on it and requests for the recipe that at this point, I decided to document it and share it with everyone. So here is my recipe...

Ingredients

• 3 cups all purpose white flour
• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 3 tsp white sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter (unsalted)
• about 1 lb sharp cheddar (or extra sharp, your choice)
• about 10 cloves of garlic (extra large cloves can count as 2 cloves)
• black pepper

Prep

• shred the pound of cheddar cheese (large shreds are fine)
• finely chop and crush the cloves of garlic (garlic press works very well here; chopping gets them small, crushing them gets all the garlic juices out for flavor infusion)
• melt the 2 tbsp of butter in the microwave (30 seconds should be more than enough time)
• bread pan with some oil or melted butter lining the inside to prevent sticking along the edges

Quick Summarized Process (for experienced bakers)

1. make bread dough with the flour, water, sugar, yeast, butter, and salt
2. let rise for a bit
3. roll out dough thinly and liberally add black pepper, garlic, and cheese on top
4. roll the dough tightly (folding as necessary to get back into the bread pan)
5. let rise for longer
6. bake in oven until done (375° F for 35 mins)
7. cool on cooling rack before slicing up and serving

Detailed Process (to duplicate my recipe exactly)

1. combine the water and white sugar in a measuring cup and stir well
2. add yeast to the sugar water and stir until thoroughly mixed; this will give the yeast a head start prior to adding it to the dough
3. in a large mixing bowl, combine the flour with the salt and stir; if you have a stand mixer, using it with a dough kneading hook is ideal for this, otherwise a large bowl and rubber spatula should suffice
4. slowly stir in the butter and water/sugar/yeast mixture into the flour/salt; once everything is combined, knead the dough vigorously; once again, if you have a stand mixer, this will very thoroughly knead everything into a slightly firm dough (if it is too sticky, consider adding more flour; if it is too firm, consider adding a little bit more water)
5. once the dough's texture feels good, place it in the bread pan and cover with clear plastic wrap
6. First Rising: place the bread pan in a warm place (sunny window sill works great, secondarily, an over with just the light turned on works fine for this too); you will want to let it rise for a little bit just to make the dough fluffy- 30 minutes if in the oven with the light on, if you're leaving it in the sun keep an eye on it and when it has risen 50% greater, that's probably enough (this can happen in as little as 10 minutes in the sun)
7. lightly flour a large surface and roll the dough out onto it using a rolling pin or large wooden cooking roller; repeatedly flatten and flip the dough until very flat (I prefer about 1.25 cm in thickness, as anything less is too thin to contain the ingredient filling and anything thicker leaves too much space for bread and no filling)
8. liberally apply the garlic and black pepper on top until evenly distributed across the dough (including the very edges, which sometimes gets overlooked for covering with flavor)
9. liberally apply about 90% of the cheddar cheese on top, and then carefully (and slowly) use the roller to push the cheese INTO the flattened dough (this is why the dough needed to be a little thicker than 1 cm); once again, also pay attention to the edges and make sure there is cheese covering most; the remaining 10% of the cheese will be used to top the bread for a little crispy flavor
10. re-oil or re-butter the bread pan (as some of it may have been removed from the first rising)
11. roll the dough into a tight swirled log and place it into the bread pan, be careful not to get too tight as it could rip the dough if you are not careful (you may end up with a log being too long for the bread pan, if this is the case, simply fold in the the two edges until it will fit into the bread pan, making sure that the center of the log is the center of bread pan and the folded ends are at the bottom)
12. Second Rising: cover the bread pan with plastic wrap again and place it in the warm place to rise; you will probably wait longer this time, as the final risen size should be slightly smaller than however large you want the loaf to be)
13. once the second rising is complete, pre-heat the oven to 375° F
14. feel free to top the loaf with the remaining cheese if crunchy cheese top is desired
15. bake the loaf at 375° F for about 35 minutes
16. remove the loaf from the oven and the pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack before slicing up with a bread knife and serving

Notes

• adding more salt to the dough doesn't add flavor, it just reduces yeast growth rate, thus affecting the speed at which the dough rises; be careful when trying to "add salt" to bread
• if you want more rise, try adding more sugar instead of more yeast, and let the dough rise longer; this may require you planning out more "waiting" activities throughout your cooking process (perfect time to do dishes or laundry)
• if you want to fill your bread with something else, replace the garlic, cheddar, and black pepper with other ingredients; I tried a pizza bread where I put in some monterey jack cheese and pepperoni, and it worked out perfectly