Cheddar and Onion Pull-Apart Bread

This was another weekend of intense cooking fun! My Mum was visiting for Easter and this is the second weekend in a row that we didn't have anything we absolutely must do. That means one thing in my house: cooking.

Even Cakes got into the act this weekend! Usually, his talents lie in the eating direction, with a bit of butter-rubbing , banana-mashing or mixer-upping when asked. We established fairly early on in our marriage that the cooking is a pink task and the tasting and devouring is a blue task. Besides. When I`m cooking in our too-small kitchen, too much company makes me  unpleasantly bossy. We`re both much happier if he perches at the dining table out of harm`s way.

As repayment for my  mother`s selfless cupcakery (amongst other things) lo those many years ago, I made her gain 5 pounds. What a selfless and delightful daughter I am.

The first cooking instalment this weekend was not one, but two (yes TWO, dear readers) types of pull apart bread: Cheddar and Onion Pull-Apart Bread and bonus Cinnamon Cream Cheese Pull-Apart Bread.  My favourite was the Cheddar and onion, which is divine and cheesy and full of gorgeous caramelized onions.  Cakes seemed to prefer the Cream cheese and cinnamon. The blended cream cheese and cinnamon mix turns, through the miracle of baking into this silky creamy caramelly goo that is absolutely gorgeous! It's not too sweet and the cream cheese taste really comes through.

They were both made with a standard whole wheat dough, the details of which I will not bore you with as there are already a squillion good recipes out there.

Let's skip ahead, past the bread mixing and kneading and first rising to the point where you would normally shape darling little loaves and place them gently into their bread-pan beds to rise one last time before baking....

First, mix up your "filling":

For the Cheddar and Onion filling, I sauteed a thinly sliced medium onion and grated enough Cheddar cheese to give me about a cup and a half. I cooled the onions and mixed them up with the cheese.

For the Cream cheese and cinnamon filling I blended 200 grams of softened, spreadable cream cheese with, 50 grams soften end butter, 1 cup of brown sugar and a tablespoon of good cinnamon and a splash of vanilla.

Once your fillings are standing by, place your darling little loaves on the chopping block and hack them into bitty pieces. I'd say about 14 or 16 little pieces per loaf.

Tumble about a third of the dismembered loaf pieces into the bottom of each non-stick bread pan and cover with a third of the appropriate topping, alternate layers adding a third more filling and dough until you've used it all. With the cream cheese filling, try to get it quite even as any big globs sitting on top will cause your hot bread to cave in after removing the loaf from the oven. Some of the globs in the photo above were too big and cause two great big sunken wells in the cooling bread. It still tasted great, but if you want a nice, evenly puffy loaf, be more careful with your distribution of cream cheese filling than I was.

Bung it in the oven and cook it just the way you would a whole loaf excepting that you should keep an eye on it as mine seemed to cook a bit faster than it would have for a regular loaf. As I've not made a whole lot of bread in this oven before, I wasn't sure if it was the oven or the fact that the dough is interspersed with filling that made it cook faster.  And remember to place a sheet of foil under your pans as the filling has a tendency to ignore the ooze over the edges of the pans, especially if you're using standard sized bread pans. The ones I use are quite a lot larger than normal.

Eat this stuff hot from the oven. It's divine.

Comments

[Jena]

For a bread fanatic like me, this recipe is like waving crack under an addict's nose. I know I will enjoy it (them) even as I haul out my "fat pants" yet again. Thanks!

(Another Edmonton food-lover.)

[Chris]

Can you cook the two side by side without the (extraordinarily good-looking) onion loaf imparting its oniony goodness on the (scrumptious, I'm sure) cinnamon loaf?

[lyn]

Chris: I did, and there was not a hint of onion about the cinnamon bread. Probably because the onions are pre-cooked and so are caramelised and not longer stinky. Lyn