“It looks like a football!  Why would you put whole wheat flour in it?  Nobody likes whole wheat flour!  Why didn’t you just put grass in it?”

This was the fantastic reaction I received when I baked homemade Whole Wheat Cheese Bread.  Not exactly what I was going for...

Our dinner plan for that particular night was soup.  What better addition to tomato soup than cheesy homemade bread?  Or so I thought! 

When I was looking through basic bread recipes for inspiration, I thought I would come up with my own concoction that would definitely include some whole wheat flour, because I love my family and that would make it a tad healthier, right?!  

I’m not going to lie, I was a wee bit concerned when I saw the bread rise.  Although it definitely did rise some, it wasn’t the big puffy ball of dough I was expecting.  Let’s just say it was a little more solid.  I wasn’t going to let that stop me.  I was determined to see it through.

After the first rise, I kneaded in cheddar cheese to the dough, and formed it into a loaf shape (sort of!), then put the dough in the bread pan to rise a second time.  It wasn’t exactly fluffing up over the edges, but again- it did rise some.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm milk
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups white flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese


Directions:
• Add yeast to milk, stir and let dissolve 10 to 15 minutes.

• Add cooled, melted butter to yeast mixture.

• Mix flour and salt together in a large bowl.

• Add yeast mixture into a well in the center of dry ingredients.

• Stir from the center slowly incorporating the flour.  (At this point my mixture was dry so I added 3 Tbsp water, one Tbsp at a time.)

• Knead the dough for a few minutes.

• Return dough to bowl, covering and leaving to rise for 2.5 hours in a warm spot.

• Grease bread pan.

• Punch down dough and knead in the cheese.

• Form dough into a loaf shape and place in bread pan, leaving it to rise for 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 400▫F

• Bake for 15 minutes, lower heat to 375 and bake approximately 30 minutes more.

The end result, although edible was not the fantastic creation of fluffy warm bread I had envisioned.  The bread was much denser than I would have liked.

This was my first homemade bread attempt in ages without the use of my glorious bread machine.  You see, during our move we lost the paddle to our machine.  Oh how I wish it would turn up!  I used to make pizza dough weekly in my beloved machine.  The bread machine gets to that perfect temperature for dough to rise.

Anyhow, I am so fortunate to have some of the best, most talented foodie friends around and I am really hoping they can help! 

Thank you so much, my friends! ♥