Garlic Herb & Cheese Bread

Directions

Preheat oven to 190° Celsius.

Mix the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and bread improver together in a large bowl. Add half of the water to the dry ingredients and then mix, slowly adding the remaining water whilst mixing. When all mixed together the ingredients should come together in a ball at this point transfer to a floured bench top.

Add the olive oil to the ball of dough and knead it in. If necessary, add extra flour if it becomes too sticky and continue working dough. The kneading is extremely important as it is a necessary technique to ensure the dough will rise and be fluffy. You want to knead the dough till the texture is smooth and elastic.

Return the dough to the bowl, cover it with glad wrap and then a tea towel and keep warm until the mixture doubles in size – this can take 1 – 1.5 hours depending on the weather).

When risen, knock the dough back in the bowl and then take it out, cut it in half and roll each half out to a large rectangle about 50cm x 25cm, then trim the edges to straighten.

Spread the top of each with 1/2 butter then scatter the crushed garlic, herb mixture and grated Philly and tasty cheese over both rectangles.

Cut each rectangle into strips, to the height of your loaf tins, with a very sharp knife and lay the strips on top of each and cut the layered strips into squares the width of your tins.

Grease or line your loaf tins, and then stack the squares on top of each other, turn the stack on its side and place them into the tins (don't worry if your dough doesn't reach the edge of the tins, the dough will rise again with the final proof). Cover the tins in glad wrap and set aside for 30 minutes.

At this stage, if you want to freeze the loafs you can.

Remove the glad wrap from the loaf tins and bake in the over for 55 minutes until the tops are golden. Remove from pan and let it rest for 10 minutes before removing from the tin and serving warm.