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If you make this you will not be able to leave the table from staring in a mesmerized trance at this as it cools. This is a lengthy and difficult recipe. But the results are impressive. I was like a little kid, I couldn't wait until it cooled all the way to eat it, but served it up while the cheese was still flowing.
I used a whole block of munster cheese. When you bake cheese in bread, shredded cheese takes up much less space after it melts, so think about it from the perspective of how much space that shredded cheese would take up as a block to get an accurate view of what the final product will be.
6 C flour
1/4 oz yeast
1 - 2 tsp salt
2 C tepid water
block of cheese (Muenster, provalone, Cheddar)
eggs
sausage (Polish kielbasa, bratwurst)
butter
1 needle
1. Grate the cheese, and cut the sausages in half.
2. Combine the yeast and water in a small bowl and whisk together. Let it sit about 10 minutes.
3. Mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Flour a surface that you'll use to work the dough on. Have an open bag of flour and a cup of water sitting all together on the table. When you're working the dough your hands will be foul, so have all of this ready to go before you move on to the next step. Oh, make sure your hands are washed.
4. Add the yeast mixture to the flour. Mix it. I use my hands. You'll get a stiff sticky dough. Add more flour or water as needed.
5. Move the dough to the floured surface and knead it, work it, until you get a stiff, smooth, elastic dough. You press the dough, knuckle it, push it, whatever works, flatten it, onto the floured surface. You then turn it over and fold the floured surface in half. Then you again press the dough, flatten it out, onto the floured surface, and repeat this process until when you push your finger into the dough it makes a smooth and unsticky dent. This recipe is a stiff dough.
6. Shape the dough into a ball and stick it in a covered container in a warm place for an hour.
7. Punch the dough down and cut it into somewhat unequal halves. The larger portion will be the base. The smaller portion will be the decorations and the cover of the cheese.
8. Butter a pizza pan (if you have one) or a baking pan thoroughly. Press the larger portion out into approximately a 14 inch circle or oval that is about 1/2 inch thick.
9. Pile the shredded cheese in the middle of the dough base. Press out about half of the remaining dough into a circle to cover the cheese. Place it over the cheese. Brush water over the edges and seal them, pressing and working it. It doesn't have to perfectly combine, just good enough.
10. Use the needle to poke a hole in the ends of the eggs. That keeps the eggs from exploding in the oven. Arrange the eggs and sausage halves around the mound of cheese. Don't block the poked holes in the eggs.
11. Roll out the remaining dough into ropes. Use two ropes for the sausages, one for the eggs, and some you'll use for the decorations on the cheese mound. Brush the ends with water and press them to combine them with the base.
12. Separate some egg yolks. You do this by cracking the egg over a bowl into which you let the white drop. Then you gently pass the yolk back and forth between the two egg halves until all the white has dropped, and then you put the yolk into a separate container. Gently beat the yolks together with a fork.
13. Carefully and thoroughly brush the yolk over the massive thing you are creating. Glaze the bread.
14. Let the bread rise an hour.
15. Preheat the oven to 400. At the start of the preheat put a baking dish filled with water on the bottom rack. This humidifies the oven, which affects the rise rate. I did not know that prior to this cook. Leave an oven proof container with liquid inside.
16. Bake the bread for 25 minutes, spraying some water in there a couple times. Switch the heat to 350 and cook it an additional 25 minutes.
17. Cool the bread on a rack and serve in pizza style slices. Enjoy.
Comments
Let me know if you make this. Send me pics and I'll put them up.
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