Kerrygold

Now that I have shared my clean eating with you, I’ll get back to more interesting eating. You may remember that in December, Kerrygold hosted a giveaway for my readers, and they also sent me a ton of butter and cheese. We are slowly making our way through all of the cheese that they sent, and over the weekend I decided to do some baking with it.

I also hadn’t made bread in awhile, and I got it in my head that I wanted to make a cheese bread. I did some searching online and found a recipe for Savory Cheddar Bread, something that looked really versatile and super easy as it is not a yeast bread. The full recipe is at the bottom of the post.

Right from the start, I knew I wanted to break open my bag of 100% whole wheat flour, a gift from King Arthur in the incredible swag bags we received during our weekend at the King Arthur store and baking school. The recipe called for two cups of all purpose flour, so I subbed one of those cups for the whole wheat flour. I am learning my lesson that when it comes to whole grains, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and as a result I am finding my baked goods taste better.

I grated a little over a cup of cheese, Kerrygold Red Leicester Cheddar, and set it aside while I mixed up my dry ingredients.

This is where the fun comes in. You can basically toss in any herbs and spices you want at this point. I decided to use garlic powder and a generous grind of black pepper to give the bread lots of flavor. In my mind, I was already making sandwiches on it.

Once the dry ingredients were blended, I added in the wet ingredients. The recipe called for dry mustard which I didn’t have, so I threw in a scoop of dijon mustard instead. I also added a little bit of extra milk since, as I learned at King Arthur, whole grain flours absorb more liquid. It really did the trick here. I wish I had learned this tip a couple of years ago!

The bread baked faster than the allotted 45 minutes, so if you make this definitely keep an eye on it. Even though I greased my pan well, part of the bread stuck in the loaf pan when I was turning it out, hence the photos of only part of the loaf . I ate the random crumbs from the pan while still warm, and they were tasty!

My husband and I both loved this bread. As I have learned with baked goods, I froze half of the loaf immediately after it had cooled so that we would not let it go to waste. I am thinking this would make some really good croutons for a grilled romaine salad somewhere down the line.

Do you have any ways of reusing or giving new life to ingredients like not-so-new bread?

Here is the recipe for the cheddar bread. Try it! It is incredibly easy.

Savory Cheddar Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon onion salt
• 1/2 teaspoon leaf oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 1/4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

1. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, onion salt, oregano, dry mustard and cheese; set aside. Combine egg, milk and butter; add all at once to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Spread batter in a greased 8-1/2-in. x 4-1/2-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.