Jalapeno Cheese Bread

by RobPaige

1.4K325

Intro: Jalapeno Cheese Bread

This recipe yields enough dough to make 3 reasonably sized loaves, or you could make one monster loaf or any combination in between. Hey, you do you, is all I'm saying. There's room for customization in this recipe, and I'll try to point out areas for that as I go along.

STEP 1: Gathering Supplies

You'll need the following:

1 thermometer
mixing bowls
loaf pans and/or baking sheet
measuring cups
measuring spoons
Safety glasses (optional, but I recommend them whenever I work with jalapenos)

And for the bread itself:

8 cups bread flour (about 2.5 pounds, varies depending on which type of flour used)
4 cups cheese (about 1 pound) I used a mix of montery jack and colby jack
1 cup chopped peppers (about 5 large peppers) I used jalapenos. Serrano, anaheims, habaneros, etc add varying degrees of heat, flavor and color.
1.5 tsp salt
2 cups hot water
3 pkgs (0.25 oz) active dry yeast
8 tbsp sugar
4tbsp vegetable oil

STEP 2: Prep Your Supplies and Make Dough

Slice your peppers into rings, then chop those until you have pieces of the preferred size. I also sliced some rings and set aside to top the loaves.

Shred your cheese. If you want bigger, cheesier nodes in the bread, cut into cubes instead.

Mix the flour, peppers, cheese, salt and 7 tsp of the sugar in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate vessel, mix the 2 cups hot water (temperature should be about 115 F or as specified on yeast package) yeast, remaining sugar, let set for 10 minutes, mix then add oil.

Add the liquid mix to the dry ingredients and knead for about 15 minutes. There will be a little more flour than needed, which can be used to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface.

put the dough in a greased bowl, flip the dough ball to ensure the entire ball is covered.

Cover bowl with towel and put in warm, dry location (my mother-in-law suggested using the oven, turned off, which works great)

Let dough sit 45-60 minutes, or until doubled in size

STEP 3: Form Loaves, Top, and Bake

Grease your loaf pans. I prefer butter

Punch down the doubled up dough ball, split into 3 roughly evenly sized wads

Foam into loaf shapes, stick in loaf pans or onto baking sheet.

Let each sit for about 45-60 minutes or until doubled in size

Top with jalapeno rings and shredded cheese

Bake at 325 for 45-60 minutes or until golden

Once removed, let the loaves sir for about 15 minutes before removing from pans

Let loaves rest 60 minutes before slicing.

4 Comments

JamieC156 6 years ago

I often make bread and I've made this bread before, just in a bread maker.
However, I do my own sourdough breads by hand and something I've learned to do is to add the dry ings to the wet ones. That's first.
Second, make sure what kind of yeast you're using. Not all yeasts are the same. For instance, for this kind of bread you want to use Active Dry Yeast, which is what you put in water to hydrate before adding the flour, and salt (and sugar if adding) to it. It has a longer leavening action than Instant Dry Yeast, and works better with such a loaded dough.
Instant Dry is best for long fermentation and higher hydration doughs and is added to the dry ings directly.
I hope this helps.

RobPaige 6 years ago

Thanks Jamie! I did use active dry yeast, and yes, I let it sit in the water about 10 minutes. Just out of curiosity, what's the thinking behind adding the dry ingredients to to the liquids? My thinking was that I'd prefer to minimize any potential splashing but I'd also welcome other thinking.

This bread also came out very dense (not that I'd consider that a bad thing) would adding baking powder to the next batch make it lighter/fluffier?

trumprocks 6 years ago

this looks freaking delicious !