Homemade Sourdough Bread Stuffed with Cheese
Bake a traditional sourdough bread with a starter but add cheese for a fun surprise!
Ingredients
- 2 cups ripe sourdough starter fed
- 5 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour King Arthur
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour King Arther 100% premium
- 1 3/4 cups water room temperature
- 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 pound cheese cheddar, pepperjack or double gloucester
Instructions
- Mix the weighed ingredients into a contiguous dough, using your hands. Cover with a clean tea towel leave it for 20 minutes.
- Add salt. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Luke folds it like a business letter and squishes with the heel of his hand. You can see in the video this process.
- Put dough back in bowl, cover with a tea towel, and put in the microwave for one hour. Do not turn the microwave on…
- Fold the dough like a business letter, flatten, rotate 90 degrees an do it again. Put it back in the bowl and cover for an hour.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, using a dough scraper. Cut in half with the dough cutter. Shape into circles. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
- Line two smaller bowls with tea towels and dust with flour.
- Chop up Pepperjack Cheese (or other cheese) into chunks and press into the surface of the dough, varying the depth.
- Fold the round with cheese, like an envelope (see video). Turn the dough over and drag toward yourself with your finger behind it, rubbing along the surface to support the dough. Rotate slightly and drag again, continuing until you’ve gone all the way around. This makes a tight surface on the top of the bread.
- Place in lined bowls with the seams facing upward. Cover and leave to rise for 2 – 2 1/2 hours.
- Prep Baking Steel - About an hour before baking, put your baking steel in the oven and a cast iron pan underneath and heat the oven at 450° F. Boil the kettle just before baking time.
- Turn the loaves our seam-side down onto parchment paper. Cut lines into the top to prevent the bread from splitting.
- Using the pizza peel slide the dough and parchment onto baking steel. Pour one cup of boiling water into the cast iron pan. BE REALLY CAREFUL and WEAR LONG OVEN GLOVES to prevent burns. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until golden.
- Cool on cooling rack and enjoy!
- Serve warm with butter. Pairs great with soups and salads. Wonderful bread for hearty sandwiches.
Notes
For the starter - you can follow this recipe here. This takes at least 5 days to grow so make sure you a lot for that time. The night before you want to make the bread, take the starter out of the fridge (discarding part of it) and feed it up to a little over 1 pound. You need to make more than a pound so you’ll have starter leftover after you’ve made your bread for your next bake.
The amount of cheese you add is subjective. If you like cheese add 1/2 a pound if you don't want tons maybe just do 1/4 a pound or skip the cheese all together.