Cheese in yeast bread? Minimizing the mess, maximizing the flavor

[lizztwozee]

Greetings, all. I'm dreaming of new flavors for bread I sell at farmer's markets (see photo), and would love to offer a cheese-herb flavor; thinking a light wheat with rosemary and gorgonzola cheese. The trick will be to make it look good (maybe adding cheese on top after baking, to soften?) while making the flavor of the cheese prominent (distributing it somehow inside the loaf without pummelling it to death in the mixer, or having it lump all together after spreading it on an unformed loaf, then rolling up). Any experience with this? I also need to preserve the cleanliness of my baking stones -- would baking round loves on parchment shield grease?

[HungryC]

Have you considered using a dehydrated cheddar powder?  You can add cheese flavor & cheese solids without adding fresh cheese.  Another "neat" option is to make a cheese/herb mixture and spoon/sprinkle it into the score after slashing the loaf.  This can decrease the oven spring a bit and lead to some odd shapes, so you'll need to experiment to find out how much cheese, what shape score holds it best, etc.  But I've seen plenty of cheese-topped boules filled in this fashion.

[lizztwozee]

HungryC, love the sprinkling idea. Will do!

[Lisa Shock]

Parchment will not protect against grease. IMO, you should run tests baked on sheet pans, just to make sure you don't mess up the stones.

 

What I do with breads where there's an add-in which I don't want exposed to the air, like lentils that get rock-hard, is I make two batches of dough. One batch has the add-in, the other is only about 25% the weight of the first, without the add-in. I scale out portions then roll out the plain dough and place the main dough (already bench shaped) in the center and wrap it up, bench rest, and then do final shaping -gently.

 

For cheese, I grate it on a large holed grater and toss with my final flour addition so it doesn't clump when mixed in. I personally do not like the big holes that happen with larger chunks of cheese.

[CatPoet]

The problem with using mould cheeses in bread , is it can taste  mouldy in a bad way.  Before I got  deadly allergic I have tried a few Gorgonzola breads and most tasted funky.

How ever  Parmesan and Pecorino breads with  herbs has always been yummy and I once got a lovely cheddar and onion loaf.

 

In late summer and early autumn  I prefer to  bake carrot and  caraway bread,  pumpkin loaf,  turnip bread,  parsnip loaf and  beet root loafs, the beet root loaf becomes either barbie pink or  reddish  crust with a speckled inside, I never get the same and I dont know why.

[lizztwozee]

Good ideas, all. Thank you so much!