Recipe #5 of NEWrecipes52 ...

Bread. I absolutely LOVE it ... in all it's different varieties ... I'm a BIG fan of bread! Yet, it's something I've not baked before. Actually, that's not quite true, I have baked bread rolls before, when I was 13 yrs old, for a home economics class at school (do they still teach "home economics" at school these days?). I remember popping into the local bakery on my way to school to buy fresh yeast for the class. It was this weird smelling and looking substance, but from it, came some pretty tasty dinner rolls.

Anyhoo, back to the present day and for this week's recipe, I thought I'd try baking my own tear 'n' share bread. Cheese & onion tear 'n' share bread to be precise. The recipe I followed was from The Great British Bake Off - How To Bake recipe book and it required very little in the way of ingredients (just flour, yeast, sugar, salt, water, olive oil, cheese & onion) but what it did need was time and LOTS of it. Bread making is a slow, but rewarding process when done properly.

Here's my assembled ingredients for the bread (the cheese & onion filling comes later) ...


My local supermarket doesn't sell fresh yeast, so I bought a box of sachets (standard 7g size here in the UK) and that's the beige coloured grains you see below (along with the sugar & salt) ...


I sifted all my dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, then mixed in some tepid water and 1 tbsp of olive oil. The best, if somewhat messy, way to mix the ingredients is by hand. Once mixed, I set the dough aside in a warm location for around 15 minutes or so ...


Then, I turned the dough out onto a lightly floured worktop and kneaded it for a good 10 minutes! You can do this bit in an electric mixer (with a dough hook attachment) if you like, but I look at this as good way of working away any stresses ...


Once the dough was soft and smooth, I popped it into a bowl which had been coated with some oil, covered it with cling film and left it in my conservatory (which gets surprisingly warm in the sunshine, even during the winter months!) for around an hour until the yeast had worked it's magic and the dough had doubled in size ...


Whilst the dough was rising, I grated some mature Cheddar cheese and gently cooked (until soft, but not coloured) a thinly sliced onion.

After the hour, I knocked the air out of the dough and kneaded it for a further 3-4 minutes to distribute the remaining air bubbles evenly throughout the mix.

The recipe I followed called for the dough to be divided into 19 evenly sized portions. Now, if I'd been sensible, I would've weighed the mixture, done some simple maths and got even and equal sizes for my dough balls ... but I wasn't sensible ... I simply pulled off bits of dough and hoped they'd be roughly the same size!!! I would describe my style as ... rustic.

Each of the dough balls was flattened and half a teaspoon of the cheese & onion mixture added ...


Then it was just a case of pinching the dough round the cheesy filling and forming it into balls, which were then placed onto a large parchment-lined baking tray ...


I left approximately 2cm between each ball and arranged them into a vaguely hexagonal formation, then set them aside in a warm place [again] for a further 30-40 minutes to "prove". The dough balls grew in size and eventually end up touching ...


I sprinkled them with some of more Cheddar cheese ...


And baked at 190oC for 30 minutes until golden brown and utterly delicious looking ...


It was hard to resist, but I let the bread cool completely before tearing it apart and enjoying all it's cheesy goodness. Yum!