pickled hot chili peppers & cheddar cheese bread

The thing I love about cooking and baking is that my mind just goes into auto-pilot. I just jump in and don't think about anything sometimes. I find it very relaxing. But sometimes auto-pilot isn't so great. Like this time, when I decided to double the recipe and really ended up quadrupling it since the recipe already was set to make two loaves. I didn't read ahead and only clued in when I was adding all that flour! So these would have been the original 2 loaves with the below recipe. However, I had a lot more dough.

Soooo I made this one, all fancy and braided.


And I STILL had a bunch of dough left so I made a bunch of buns and a round loaf (with cheddar cheese sandwiched in the middle).  (You like my little homage to Pac-man. hehe)

I haven't made bread in a while and my father pickled a bunch of hot chili peppers (they are the small skinny red and green ones) and gave me a big jar. So I figured I'd try them in a bread recipe and add aged cheddar cheese. The peppers give a nice heat and the pickled peppers and aged cheddar together gave a nice flavor.

Good thing I liked it, cuz that's a lot of bread.

....

pickled hot chili peppers & cheddar cheese bread

2 pkg active dry yeast
2.5 cups warm water
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp butter or margarine, melted
7 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup pickled hot chili peppers, chopped small
1 cup (aged)cheddar cheese, grated

1 egg white
1 tbsp cold water.

Dissolve yeast in warm water in mixer bowl. Add salt, butter and flour. Knead with dough hook for 1 minute on speed 2 or until blended.

Add pickled hot chili peppers and cheddar and knead for 2 minutes on speed 2.

Place dough on greased bowl and cover. Let rise in warm place for 1 hour.

Punch dough down and divide in half. Roll each half into rectangles. Roll up the dough tightly from longest side, tapering ends.

Place loaves onto greased baking sheets, dusted with cornmeal. Cover and let rise in warm place for 1 hour.

Make 4 diagonal cuts along the top of each loaf and bake for 25 minutes at 450F.

Remove from oven. Beat egg white and water wash together adn brush each loaf with it. Return to the oven and bake for 5-10 minutes longer.

Recipe adapted from: French Bread, KitchenAid Instuction and Recipe Manual.