Fast Breads Lots of Cheese Bread

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This month at Food Network Canada’s Cooking Club Challenge the theme is inspired by the show Top Chef Canada and its President’s Choice episode. I loved this episode and seeing what products the judges liked and those that failed to impress.

One that stood out was the PC Smokin’ Stampede Beer & Chipotle Barbecue Sauce which the judges just raved about. Barbecue sauce is not something I readily make from scratch so I thought this PC product was perfect to test and I got it on sale!

So what was I going to do with it? I needed to do more than just barbecue a chicken breast or steak. Instead I baked homemade cheese bread and cooked some pulled chicken to make a three napkin barbecued grilled cheese sandwich.

The recipe is called Lots of Cheese Bread and it comes from Fast Breads: 50 Recipes for Easy, Delicious Bread written by Elinor Klivans and published by Chronicle Books.

Add 1 cup of warm whole milk. I added some soy coffee creamer to skim milk and just heated it in the microwave until it was just above body temperature. Mix until smoothly combined.

Add 1 large egg and beat for two minutes. My mixer Rebel actually stole the egg white from my yolk as I photographed this!

Add 1 3/4 cup flour and continue mixing for five minutes. I actually changed to a dough hook at this point and let it knead the dough for the five minutes.

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Sprinkle 8 oz of sharp cheddar cheese that has been cut into 1/2-3/4″ pieces. I found this part super confusing. Were they supposed to be cubed? How on earth would I fit all that cheese onto the tiny piece of dough? I wanted this to be a cheese bread but not a cholesterol bomb. I omitted some of the cheese.

I folded the dough over one side, turned, folded again, rotating and turning around five times. This was starting to remind me of the rosemary raisin bread I made where all the raisins were just on the top.

I shaped the dough into a loaf and put in a greased loaf pan with parchment paper on the bottom. I covered with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes.

The loaf did fill out nicely! I baked in a preheated 375F oven for less time than the recipe said. I could smell the bread at 30 minutes and it was very dark so I took it out before the 45 minutes was up.

Most of the cheese leaked out of one side and burned and there was only a little dough along the edge left. I really do not like this style of making bread. Next time I will just add it at the end of the kneading process so there is cheese throughout.

The bread was quite dry but did end up being pretty perfect for grilled cheese sandwiches:

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I cooked a few chicken breasts in my crockpot with some of the barbecue sauce for a few hours so it was fork tender and shredded easily. I cooked it on the stovetop in the barbecue sauce until thick and warm. I thinly slices the cheese bread and added more cheese and the chicken. I toasted on both sides until the cheese melted and served with my homemade bread and butter pickles.

What a messy sandwich! But I do think it was Top Chef Canada worthy, if I do say so myself. I liked the barbecue sauce but was not as wowed by it as the judges were, I am afraid. If you have a great barbecue sauce recipe you would like to share, let me know. I love super smokey and savoury barbecue sauces with just a hint of sweetness.

Still, a really fun challenge this month that allowed for a ton of creative thought and input!