Rosemary Cheddar Cheese Bread

It actually looks pretty good

Time: 2 Hours

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Difficulty: 1/5

A bread that has been marbled like a cake sounds interesting. This recipe from King Arthur’s Baker’s Companion marbles a cheddar batter dough with a rosemary one. Unfortunately, I malfunctioned and bought sage instead of rosemary. I think sage and cheese will still go together, though.

Key Ingredients & Omissions:

As I just mentioned, I accidentally used sage instead of rosemary. I bought it fresh and used my air fryer to dehydrate/dry it. Other than that, I didn’t leave anything out. I should say that the cheese that you use will be important in how the cheese dough/batter comes out. I used a mild hoop cheddar, but maybe use a sharper cheddar if you want a cheesier result.

Tools:

• Bowls

• Loaf Pan

• Whisk

Cooking Review:

Sage Batter :14 minutes

After using butter to grease a loaf pan and the cups of a muffin pan, I softened more butter in the microwave by putting in for a minute at 50% power. In the meantime, I beat the egg and added the milk. The butter was added next, but quickly cooled off and formed chunks. I tried my best to break up the butter into smaller pieces and mix it evenly. In another bowl, I whisked together the baking powder, salt, and whole wheat flour. I crumbled the dried sage into the dough and whisked it together before adding the egg mixture and mixing until just combined. Finally, I poured half of it into a loaf pan and distributed the other half into cups of a muffin pan.

Cheddar Batter: 15 minutes

At the same time as I softened the butter for the sage batter, I melted the butter for this batter. I shredded the cheese, then beat the egg in a bowl before adding the milk and melted butter. In another bowl, I combined the flour, cayenne, black pepper, baking powder, and salt. The cheese was mixed into the flour mixture next before the egg mixture was mixed in. The batter was finally split between the loaf pan and the muffin pan.

Marble Batters: 5 minutes

Using a butter knife, I gently marbled the batters together by moving the knife back and forth through the batters.

Baking & Cooling: 1 hour 7 minutes

I baked the bread for 50 minutes. At that point, a skewer came out of the bread cleanly and the bread was nicely browned. I let the bread sit for about 15 minutes in the pans before  transferring them to a cooling rack. I let them cool completely before giving them a try.

Analysis:

The texture of this bread is very nice. The exterior is slightly crisp and the interior is very soft and tender. As far as flavors go, they are generally pretty light. I am able to taste both the sage and cheddar, but they aren’t very strong. This bread is also pretty buttery and has a light spiciness from the cayenne. Despite me using the wrong herb, I thing this pairing worked pretty well. I do think that this could’ve been a little more flavorful, though. I’m going to give this a 7/10. I think it would be nice as a side like a biscuit or corn bread.