Jalapeño Cheese Bread

We're getting close to "oven off" season in this household. In our apartment, the mere thought of turning the oven on increases the temperature within it by ten degrees. In the winter, this is great-- make a pot roast and heat the house! Yes! But the rest of the year, forget about it. The summer months are spent in the yard, using the grill and the smoker.

It's only April but it's supposed to be in the triple digits tomorrow. What better way to deny the coming of summer than to fire up the oven and bake some bread?

Ingredients
1 package dry, active yeast
3/4 cup warm water
pinch of sugar
3 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
4 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
3 jalapeño peppers-- one cut into slices and the other two seeded and chopped
3 big garlic cloves, minced

How To
People get all freaked out about making bread with yeast, which I've never really understood. What's so scary about it? Yeast is fun-- it's like filling a paper-mache cone with vinegar and baking soda to imitate a volcano.

First, you proof your yeast by combining your yeast, pinch of sugar and warm water. The water should be just warmer than room temperature. Here's the yeast just after being mixed:

And here it is five minutes later. Bubbly fun!

If it doesn't bubble, then it's time for a trip to the grocery store because your yeast is no good.

Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and make a little well. Fill the well with the eggs, butter and yeast mixture. If you have a mixer, use the dough hook to mix and kneed the dough for several minutes.

Now, I made lots and lots of bread by hand before I owned a mixer. It's time-consuming (but is that a bad thing?) and takes elbow-grease (again, why is that a bad thing?) but doable. I feel a little spoiled by my mixer (I've only had it for a year but use it weekly.) Here's a good tutorial on how to mix and knead dough by hand if you're working without a mixer.

But I've got my mixer so I used my mixer (the KitchenAid Professional 6-Quart Mixer, if you're interested) to work everything together. Here's the dough just starting:

And here it is after about 5 minutes. Magic! If your dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add flour little by little until the dough begins to take shape but is still sticky:

Move the dough to an oiled bowl and cover to let rise. Here it is before mixing:

And here it is after letting it rise for about 30 minutes:

Neat, huh? Punch it down and let it go another round of rising.

One the dough has gone through two risings, it's time to heat your oven to 350 degrees. You want your oven nice and toasty once it's time to put in the bread.

Spread the dough out in a big rectangle. I use a combination of a rolling pin and my hands to massage it into shape. The nice thing about yeast doughs made with eggs and butter is they tend to be more glossy and elastic and a little less sticky than others doughs. I don't even use flour on my board while I roll it out:

Sprinkle the dough with the chopped jalapeños, minced garlic and handfuls of cheese. I'll confess that I don't measure the cheese when I do this, I just eyeball it. Don't go too crazy with the cheese though-- too much cheese and it will bubble out of the loaf and just make a big mess.

Now comes the tricky part. Roll the dough up like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls. One:

Two... (I am totally the one-armed dragon lady here, no?)

Three!

Pinch the final layer of dough to the top of the loaf and roll it around a bit to smooth out the seam. You want the dough to be fairly well sealed in on itself. The less sealed the dough, the more likely you'll have cheese on the pan and not in the bread like you want.

Center the loaf on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let it rise again for about 30 minutes. Press slices of jalapeño into the top and sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Tap the loaf in the center. If it makes a hollow sound, it's done. Be sure to let it cool completely before slicing.

And then here it is... notice how rolling everything up makes yummy pockets of cheese: