RECIPE - Cheddar, onion and parsley plait

As you've probably gathered by now, I love my bread machine but use it mostly for preparing doughs to shape by hand and bake in the oven. The cheese and parsley in this loaf help to keep it moist so IF - and it's a very big if - you can resist wolfing it all down on the day you make it, it will keep for several days before starting to taste stale. (Although take care in summer, hot, humid weather tends to make moist-doughed breads go mouldy very quickly).

A note about the flour I used - I love the Wessex Mill flours that I buy from my local farm shop, and in this loaf I used a 50/50 mixture of their onion flour and ordinary strong plain flour. The onion flour has a lovely strong taste and makes amazing onion bread, but I thought it would overpower the cheese and parsley if I used just that. If you can't get hold of onion flour, add 2 tablespoons of dried fried onion flakes, the kind that are sold for scattering over salads and soups, when you add the flour to the bread machine.

Recipe

My bread machine comes with a measuring cup and when I refer to cups, I mean a 240ml cup

1 cup water at room temperature
2 tbs dried milk powder
1 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp salt
125g finely grated Cheddar cheese, the stronger the better!
4-5 tbs finely chopped fresh parsley
3 cups flour (see note above) plus flour for dusting.
1½ tsp dried yeast

add the ingredients to your bread machine in the order that is usual for your machine and prepare the dough using the dough setting.

When the dough is ready, tip out onto a floured surface and knead lightly, then cut into three equal portions and roll into "sausages" about 40 cm long. Line a baking sheet with non-stick paper and place the rolls of dough on it. Pinch them firmly together at one end then plait very loosely, to allow the dough room to rise, pinching the ends together when you reach them.

Loosely cover with oiled cling film and leave until doubled in size - 40 minutes to an hour.

Place a small heatproof bowl of water in the bottom of the oven and heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/400F/gas mark6.

Cook the bread in the centre of the oven for around 25 minutes, until the base sounds hollow when tapped. Keep an eye on it in the last few minutes, as the cheese content means the crust can darken very rapidly! Cool on a rack (if you can wait that long before cutting in to it!)

I am sharing this recipe with Bready Steady Go! at Utterly Scrummy Food For Families and Jen's Food


As this bread would be gorgeous with a barbecues, I'm also sharing with Cooking with Herbs at Lavender and Lovage