Doc Bear - 11:53 am PDT - Jun 1, 2000 -#3322 of 8756

Jalapeño cheese bread is very very easy to make. Pick one of your favorite bread recipes for the base. It can be either white bread or whole wheat, although I usually go half-way in between, using both types of flour. Make the bread dough and let rise normally. Roll out the dough to make a rectangle as wide as your loaf pan, to a thickness of about 1/8 to 1/4" thick. Sprinkle with finely diced and thoroughly drained jalapenos (no seeds). The amount you use will determine the "heat" of the bread, but be relatively uniform in the distribution of the diced peppers on the dough. If you prefer, you can use any type of diced chiles instead of the jalepeños. More on that later. I usually use very sharp aged white cheddar for the cheese, although I sometimes make it with whatever sharp cheese I happened to have left over in the fridge. More on that later too. Grate the cheese. The cheese should not be evenly distributed. The idea is to have little pockets of cheese with intense flavor in each slice. Looking at the rectangle of dough from the pan width side, make little mounds of grated cheese over the dough, so that at least one pocket of cheese will hit each slice when the bread comes out of the oven. Vary the position for each little mound, so the cheese pockets come out at various heights and widths of the finished loaf. Don't get too close to the edge of the loaf or you will be cleaning baked cheese off of your bread pans. Roll tightly and press the final seam. Place seam down in the pans and bake the normal time for your dough recipe. You can also make a round loaf, but that is a little more difficult to describe as far as placement of the peppers and cheese.

I live in California, so it is relatively easy to get fresh jalepeños and other interesting peppers in the local grocery stores. When I am BBQing, I'll throw some peppers on the grill to roast, while it is heating up. Then I peel and clean them the way I do fresh chiles. In a pinch, I have used jarred or canned jalepeños and/or chiles, but these have to be drained much more thoroughly. You can also create little "flavor pockets" by putting a little more diced jalepeño in certain areas of the dough, similar to what is done with the cheese. Some people like thesurprise of suddenly getting a concentrated dose in a bite. The amount of diced jalepeño is simply a matter of taste. Sometimes I make it very hot, for use with beef stew, pot roast, etc. Other times, I make it more mild.

The type of cheese is a matter of taste. The aged white cheddar is very sharp and does well. Any type of cheddar will do well. Softer tasting cheeses such as Jack or Mozzarella, do not work as well, in my opinion. I have, however, found some tasty results in using some leftover Parmesan, Romano, and other tangy cheeses in a mix with cheddar. I use about 1/3 cup loosely packed grated cheese per loaf. Your mileage might vary.

One interesting option is to use some very finely diced garlic or puréed garlic in strategic places in the loaf. Another is to shred some fresh basil and sprinkle on the dough before baking.

As you can tell from my description, I have never made it exactly the same way twice. Very often, I'll make a light bread recipe and make apple cinnamon bread with half of the dough and jalepeño cheese bread with the other half. I wrote down the recipe in a formal way, a couple of years back, for a friend and I'm sure I have it on my server. But I'm sitting on the patio, watching the butterflies and the hummingbirds and am too lazy to get up and look for it. I'm experimenting with a lemon bread recipe and waiting for my dough to rise. LOL, I wouldn't want to walk back inside and hinder the rising, would I?

--doc