Loving this combination in my bread – cheese and pesto. It gives me one thing more to look forward to in the morning, a warm-hearted breakfast with home-baked bread to go along with my cuppa coffee.
Nothing beats having home-baked bread to slice and bite into in the morning. From the point of view of the baker (i.e. me, myself and my hands), I love seeing the fruits of my efforts, especially at the point of cutting into freshly-baked loaves. The first sounds of the crunchy bits of the crust when you start slicing into it, followed by the softness and fluffiness within the crust when your knife goes right in very easily. This means that the bread has risen well and been baked right. This also means that my few hours of waiting for it to proof and rise has been well worth the wait. 😀
Ingredients:
- Milk: 1/2 cup
- Warm water: 1/2 cup
- Active dry yeast: 2 1/4 tsp
- Plain flour: 5 cups
- Egg: 1
- Salt: 1 tsp
- Olive oil: 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp for brushing
- Pesto sauce: 1/2 cup
- Parmesan cheese: 1 cup, grated + extra for topping
Method:
- Lightly stir together milk, warm water and yeast. Leave to stand for 5min till bubbly.
- Combine plain flour, egg, salt and 1/4 cup olive oil. Add yeast mixture to flour mixture. Knead 10min by hand.
- Grease bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl and cover with towel. Leave to proof for 1 hr.
- Deflate with hand. Divide dough into 2 portions.
- Roll out 1st portion into a rectangle (6″ x 18″). Spread 2 tbsp pesto sauce onto rectangle, leaving a margin of 1cm from the edges.
- Distribute 1/2 cup cheese evenly on top of pesto.
- Roll rectangle up lengthwise to form a log. Place log seam side down onto greased baking paper.
- Repeat with the other portion of dough. Leave both doughs to rise, covered, for another 30min.
- Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius.
- Brush top of bread with remaining olive oil. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of bread.
- Bake 30min till golden brown and well-risen.
Trick:
-
You can also use red pesto sauce as the spread for the bread. I wanted to make one loaf with red and the other with green pesto sauce, but forgot all about it and left the red one unopened in the fridge!
Serving:
2 loaves (about 10 slices in all)
