This week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe -- Cheesy Bastille Day Beer Bread -- requires two types of French cheese. So I paid a visit to our favorite local cheesemonger, Arrowine in Arlington, VA (Arrowine also sells a wide selection of charcuterie, and as you might guess from the name, it's primarily a wine store). I knew Arrowine would have Comté, but I had never heard of Pyrenees Brebis cheese and had no idea if they would sell it.
I stepped up to the cheese counter and scanned the case looking for the Brebis. While I was looking, one of the guys behind the counter offered me a few cheese samples. The sampling program there is a pretty effective selling tactic. First I sampled some Wilde Weide, a Dutch raw milk Gouda. It was delicious and I ended up buying some. Then I tasted a thin slice of Secret de Compostelle. Not only was it tasty, but it was in fact the exact French sheep's milk Brebis cheese that I happened to be looking for. The only downside to going to Arrowine is that it's impossible to leaving without dropping a lot of cash; good cheese and charcuterie are expensive, but worth it. I was planning to make two loaves of cheesy bread, so I needed a little more than a half pound of each of the French cheeses (four ounces of each per loaf, plus a little extra weight to account for the rind that needs to be trimmed off). After buying the Comté ($25/pound) and Secret de Compostelle ($28/pound), a small wedge of Wilde Weide, and a few ounces of Jamon Serrano (an impulse buy), I left the store with my small bag of goodies and my wallet nearly $50 lighter.
This recipe is super easy. By far the most time-consuming step was cubing the Secret de Compostelle and shredding the Comté cheese (I did this by hand with a Microplane). But once the cheese was prepped, it only took about 5 minutes to mix the batter and get the loaves in the oven. I lined two large loaf pans (10-inches by 5-inches) with parchment paper and sprinkled some shredded Comté on the bottom of each pan. To make the bread batter, I whisked together all of the wet ingredients (beer, eggs, sour cream, and melted butter) in one bowl; combined all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, black pepper, ancho chile powder, the Secret de Compostelle, and most of the remaining shredded Comté) in another bowl; and folded the wet ingredients into the dry. I used Stella Artois beer because that's what we happened to have in the fridge. I carefully transferred the batter into the pans (trying not to disturb the layer of shredded cheese on the bottom), smoothed the batter, and sprinkled the remaining Comté on top.
The loaves baked up with beautifully dark golden, cheesy tops. The bread had a fairly open texture, with visible black specks from the ground pepper and shiny bits of melted cheese cubes. It's freakin' delicious. I thought the seasoning could be dialed up a little (I couldn't taste the ancho chile at all and I think some more black pepper would be a good idea), but each slice was a cheesy delight, with a crispy top and bottom cheese crust. The bread was delicious plain, terrific as toast, and perfect as an accompaniment to the chili that my husband happened to make for dinner the following evening.
The cheese definitely is the star of this bread. I think that if the bread was sliced thin, cut into small squares, and lightly toasted, it would make an excellent base for canapés. Of course, the cost is somewhat prohibitive -- the cheese alone cost me more than $13 per loaf. But as my husband pointed out, this bread would also be delicious with some lower-cost substitutions, like Asiago and Parmigiano-Reggiano (I do love my Asiago bread). This bread requires so little effort but gives you so much in return -- a loaf full of flavorful, cheesy, satisfying comfort.
Recipe: "Cheesy Bastille Day Beer Bread" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
I stepped up to the cheese counter and scanned the case looking for the Brebis. While I was looking, one of the guys behind the counter offered me a few cheese samples. The sampling program there is a pretty effective selling tactic. First I sampled some Wilde Weide, a Dutch raw milk Gouda. It was delicious and I ended up buying some. Then I tasted a thin slice of Secret de Compostelle. Not only was it tasty, but it was in fact the exact French sheep's milk Brebis cheese that I happened to be looking for. The only downside to going to Arrowine is that it's impossible to leaving without dropping a lot of cash; good cheese and charcuterie are expensive, but worth it. I was planning to make two loaves of cheesy bread, so I needed a little more than a half pound of each of the French cheeses (four ounces of each per loaf, plus a little extra weight to account for the rind that needs to be trimmed off). After buying the Comté ($25/pound) and Secret de Compostelle ($28/pound), a small wedge of Wilde Weide, and a few ounces of Jamon Serrano (an impulse buy), I left the store with my small bag of goodies and my wallet nearly $50 lighter.
This recipe is super easy. By far the most time-consuming step was cubing the Secret de Compostelle and shredding the Comté cheese (I did this by hand with a Microplane). But once the cheese was prepped, it only took about 5 minutes to mix the batter and get the loaves in the oven. I lined two large loaf pans (10-inches by 5-inches) with parchment paper and sprinkled some shredded Comté on the bottom of each pan. To make the bread batter, I whisked together all of the wet ingredients (beer, eggs, sour cream, and melted butter) in one bowl; combined all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, black pepper, ancho chile powder, the Secret de Compostelle, and most of the remaining shredded Comté) in another bowl; and folded the wet ingredients into the dry. I used Stella Artois beer because that's what we happened to have in the fridge. I carefully transferred the batter into the pans (trying not to disturb the layer of shredded cheese on the bottom), smoothed the batter, and sprinkled the remaining Comté on top.
The cheese definitely is the star of this bread. I think that if the bread was sliced thin, cut into small squares, and lightly toasted, it would make an excellent base for canapés. Of course, the cost is somewhat prohibitive -- the cheese alone cost me more than $13 per loaf. But as my husband pointed out, this bread would also be delicious with some lower-cost substitutions, like Asiago and Parmigiano-Reggiano (I do love my Asiago bread). This bread requires so little effort but gives you so much in return -- a loaf full of flavorful, cheesy, satisfying comfort.
Recipe: "Cheesy Bastille Day Beer Bread" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Cheddar Corn Soufflé," March 31, 2013.
- "We're Crackers for Cheesy Bread!: Pane Con Formaggio," January 12, 2010.
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