Cheesy Jalapeno Bread

Hello everyone!

In this Instructable, I am sharing my cheesy jalapeno bread recipe along with some tips and tricks that I've learned to improve my bread making skills. The cheesy jalapeno bread is one of the first breads I ever made and is what sparked an interest in bread making.

This is also a no-knead bread. The key factor I’ve found in most
no-knead breads is that they’re very sticky due to the high water content. I’ve found a 2:1 ratio of flour to water (cups) to be optimal. This bread has around 90-95% hydration.

Let's get started!

Ingredients:
3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour (all-purpose will result in a softer bread while bread flour will have a chewier texture)

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 tsp salt (or to taste)

1 tbsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (one packet)

2 tbsp olive oil or butter

1 jar jalapeno, drained (can also use 4-5 fresh jalapenos)

8 oz cheddar cheese (or mix and match your favorites: Parmesan, Asiago)

Let's prepare the dough.

In a large bowl, mix yeast, sugar, warm water. You can rest the yeast, sugar, and water mixture until the yeast activates and produces bubbles, but I've noticed that this step is optional, even with active dry yeast. I did rest mine to ensure the yeast was still active.

Add oil and salt. Now add flour one cup at a time and mixing until the dough just comes together. You can see the consistence of the dough after adding each cup of flour. After the third cup, I noticed that the bread was quite wet, so I added a few tablespoons of flour until the dough kept its shape. The extra flour totaled about 1/4 cup.

Now all you have to do is oil the bowl and the dough ball, cover, and set it to rise in a warm place for a couple hours. You can make this dough a day before and let it rise in the fridge in a bowl or ziplock bag.

Now time for the main part: the cheese and the jalapeno.

Drain the jalapenos and prepare the cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. After all, this IS called CHEESY jalapeno bread, not jalapeno cheese bread. I like to cut into small cubes to essentially get pockets of cheese, but you can also shred it if you like which results in a appealing looking bread after baking. Also, orange cheddar looks better than white cheddar.

Lightly oil the pan/tray in which you will bake the bread in.

After the dough is risen, it should be more than doubled in size and quite bubbly. I just put all the jalapeno and cheese and mixed it really well. You can see the consistency of the dough. Place the dough in pan, cover, and let it rise about an hour in a warm place.

After the second rise, you can shave some fresh Parmesan cheese on top to add to the appeal factor after baking. Bake the bread at 375 F for 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned. As soon as you take the bread out, an optional step is to brush some melted butter on top which gives the bread a shiny and enticing look. If you're wondering how it tasted, it was the softest bread I've ever made and so incredibly cheesy.

If you make it, let me know how it turns out. Enjoy!