BBD #16 – Walnut-Cheese-Mini-Loaves

Temperance of High on the Hog the host of Bread Baking Day #16 invites us to bake bread with cheese.

Last year I had the great chance to visit and spend a night at the bakery of Mr. Wolfisberg in Geneva. He is a dedicated baker, who offers a lot of different breads in his shop among others a Pain gruyère-noisette. Nuts and cheese is a great combo. When I made the Mini-Walnussbrote I did remember Wolfi’s bread and decided to bake my own version for BBD #16.

The dough is the same I made for the Mini-Walnussbrote. Y. doesn’t like cheese, thus I did cut the dough into halves once it was kneaded and added the cheese just to one half. Of course I used a Spanish cheese, a queso semicurado that’s made with cows, goats and sheeps milk.

Semicurado means semi-cured and corresponds to normally semi-soft or semi-cured cheeses. Its flavor being between medium and strong.

The one I used has quite a strong goat flavor, that you can still taste in the bread. If you don’t like this kind of cheese you can replace by another hard cheese like Gruyère.

The bread is best eaten warm and fresh from the oven or toasted. If your fancy you can eat it with honey, yummy!

Walnut-Cheese-Mini-Loaves
makes 4 mini-loaves

Walnut-Cheese-Mini-Loaves fresh from the oven – you can see the melted cheese inside.

90 g fresh firm sourdough starter
7 g fresh yeast
+/- 180 g water
50 g whole wheat flour
250 g wheat flour
8 g salt
90 g walnuts, coarsely chopped
150 g cheese (queso semicurado), grated

Dissolve yeast and sourdough in 50 g water. Add all ingredients expect cheese in the mixer bowl. Mix on low speed 1.5 (Bosch MUM 8) for 3 minutes, and another 4 minutes on speed 2 (Bosch MUM 8). Add cheese and mix until it’s all distributed and you have a smooth dough.
Cover and let rise for 40 minutes. Make one Stretch & Fold, cover and let rise for 30-40 minutes again.

Cut dough into 4 equal pieces. Shape into 4 long loaves, set on a prepared baking sheet in two pairs. Do not leave any space within the pair. Let rise for 60 minutes.

In the meantime preheat oven to 220 C.

Before baking slash top of the loaves.

Bake for 20 minutes, open oven door to release steam bake for another 5 minutes. Remove loaves from oven and let cool 5-10 Minutes, enjoy still warm.

Once it’s completely cooled it looks like a „normal“ bread.

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