Bacon and Cheese Bread

A few days back I posted a pic on Twitter of some bread I'd made, cheese and bacon bread to be exact.

I ate a whole one of these in a single day

Somewhat unexpectedly, it got a fairly hefty response from people saying it looked delicious - cue much swelling of egos and puffing out of chests.
For the record, it was really nice!
Anyway, since people seemed very keen on the idea of bread with bacon in it (cos we all know that bacon makes everything better), I thought I'd post up the recipe I used.
This is taken from Paul Hollywood's book, How To Bake (that's a link to the American Kindle edition on Amazon, doesn't seem to be available in hardcover there yet. Here's a link to the British hardcover version).  If you don't know, Paul Hollywood is one of the judges on the BBC show The Great British Bake Off, a favourite show of mine.
If you like bread and fancy trying your hand at making all sorts of different types then this is an excellent book to go with - it's got everything from basic loaves to exotic sounding flavours, sweet and savoury. I recommend it!
But if you can't get hold of the book and you've just got that urge for cheese and bacon bread (and who could blame you), the recipe's below!


Ingredients (makes 4 loaves - I halved these and only made 2):

• 400g strong white bread flour
• 100g strong wholemeal bread flour
• 10g salt
• 10g instant yeast
• 30g unsalted butter, softened
• 330ml cool water

For the filling:

• Olive oil
• 8 rashers smoked back bacon, rind removed
• 150g cheddar, grated (I'm not sure but I believe that in America, cheddar cheese is not necessarily the same as the British version - it's the British one in this recipe so you might need to check on that)

Instructions:

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Add the butter and three quarters of the water and turn the mixture round with your fingers. Continue to add the remaining water, a little at a time, until you've picked up all the flour from the sides of the bowl. - you want dough that is soft but not soggy.

Once you have a rough dough, tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and begin to knead. Keep kneading for 5-10 mins, through the wet stage, until the dough starts to form a soft, smooth skin.

When the dough is smooth and silky, put it into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a tea-towel (I actually used clingfilm) and leave to rise until at least doubled in size - at least an hour but maybe 2 or even 3.

While that's rising, gently fry the bacon on both sides until tender. Take out of the pan and set to one side until it's cool and then chop into pieces.

Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.

Once the dough is risen, add the bacon and cheese to the bowl with it and knead until it's well distributed. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly.

Divide the dough into 4 pieces and shape into ovals, about 2.5 cm thick, tapering the ends into points. Place 2 ovals on each tray, spaced apart. Dust the loaves with flour and deeply slash the tops lengthways.

Put each tray inside a clean plastic bag and leave to prove for another hour, or until the dough is at least doubled in size and springs back quickly if you prod it lightly with your finger.  Heat your oven to 220 Celsius (no idea what this is in Fahrenheit).

Once proved (proven? Dunno), sprinkle the loaves with a little olive oil and bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown. Eat warm!