I’ve been into making different kinds of breads lately. It can be addictive, I’ll admit, because very few foods are as comforting as bread. Especially warm bread, fresh from the oven. Um.. I’m hungry now. I’ll be back later.
I’ve been making pepperoni rolls periodically and they are a complete hit; it’s shocking how fast they disappear. I will write about them at another time. I found something similar in one of our bread books by Peter Reinhart. I decided to give it a try. I’m still not very comfortable making bread the way these books want me to. The dough is so wet it’s hard to knead and it makes a huge mess on my hands, the counter, and whatever unfortunate shirt I happen to be wearing. But I try.
In this pepperoni bread Mr. Reinhart instructs you to do something I’ve never done before: sauté the pepperoni before putting it into the dough. This renders the fat out making the loaf less greasy and also gives it a stronger flavor. Who am I to argue? Chop it up and cook it!
This step has the added benefit of making everyone in the house hungry three hours before the bread is done. You get to beat them off with a stick and tell them to go away.
This recipe is supposed to be made with salami but he said you can experiment. A strong flavored cheese that melts well is also best. Mozzarella is too mild mannered, it seems. So I figured what’s stronger than cheddar? It melts well too, so it was decided early on that this would be a cheddaroni bread.
Now, this is a very sticky dough. We are adding meat and cheese, after all. Kneading shredded cheddar and chopped up pepperoni into this dough is very interesting. It turns everything orange; the countertops, the spoon, my hands, it was awesome. So here’s the first rise. Before:
After:
Yes Master, what is thy bidding? What’s that? I’m supposed to punch it down? Roll it into a loaf? But what if it swallows me up when I do that?
The actual name of this bread is Casatiello and he says it’s traditionally baked in paper bags. Paper bags, huh? I have to tell you…
I was sooooooo tempted. My mind was racing. “Think of the blog! The pictures! The stories!” Then I would think of the bread, and how sad I would be if it ripped through the bag or rose too much and oozed over the side, or maybe even burst open and exploded all over the oven. Actually that would have been pretty cool. Maybe next time. Into the bread pan it went.
And after the second rise it looked kind of scary again. This is a very excitable bread. It got even bigger in the oven. I opened the oven door and screamed in horror at how big it had gotten. Here’s the finished product (yes I finished baking at about 11:00pm).
You see all those browned bits of cheese toasted into the crust? It was painful waiting to cut into it, but when I did the bread revealed its inner glory.
It looks great, and it tasted great. It could have used a bit more pepperoni; it’s looking a little sparse where the meat is concerned. And I think I overcooked it a little because it was a tad dry, but it toasted up into a meal you’d truly give thanks for. Now, for my taste, a little cheddar goes a long way. So in the future I would probably use less but Karen loved this. I think the kids agreed with me, but they hate everything the first time so I never bother listening to their initial impressions. I also want to experiment with other cheeses and meats.
We have two books from Peter Reinhart. One is Artisan Breads Every Day and the other is The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Many of the breads in these books call for some sort of starter or biga with an overnight rise in the fridge. But this is a one day bread, and for that I was grateful.