This bread is an all in one bread, a meal on its own. If you are tired of making yourself a sandwich why not give this a try, it has loads of flavour and is super delicious.
This is what the dough looks like after is has proved and the air has been knocked out.
You can reduce the amount of speck, walnuts, gorgonzola and parmesan cheese, the bread rolls will just be more ‘bready’ but there is nothing wrong with that either.
I love the added crunch that the walnut adds to these rolls and complements the salty smoky burst of flavour from the speck.
You can also make these into smaller rolls. Don’t worry if there are pieces sticking out it just add character to the rolls.
These are great served warm as the gorgonzola is slightly runny. If you are serving them to your friends allow them to tear their own rolls away as it adds just that little bit excitement to the meal.
I do have to confess that I can not give you the best directions for the folding process but I will try my best 🙂
Cheesy Speck and Walnut Bread
Ingredients
- Bread:
- 400 g Strong White Flour
- 100 g Whole Wheat Flour
- 30 g Butter
- 10 Fast Action Yeast or 20g Fresh Yeast
- 320 ml Water
- 7 g Salt
- Filling:
- 80 g Speck roughly chopped
- 80 g Walnuts roughly chopped
- 75 g Gorgonzola broken into pieces
- 75 g Parmesan Cheese grated
Instructions
- Lightly oil a large mixing bowl and place it to one side.
- In a large mixing bowl mix the flour and salt together. Add the fast action yeast to the flour. If using fresh yeast dissolve it in your tepid water. Add the butter in small pieces to the the flour and mix it in with your fingertips. Add 250ml of the tepid water, using your fingers mix the ingredients together and then slowly add the rest of the water until all the water and flour have come together and the sides of the bowl have come clean.
- Place the dough on the counter top and knead for 10 minutes. The dough should be soft to the touch but if it is really sticky add a little bit of flour.
- If the dough bounces back to the touch it is ready, if not knead some more.
- (The above can all be done in a mixer).
- Place the dough in your lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp tea towel.
- Leave to rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Once the dough has doubled in size tip it onto a lightly floured work surface and repeatedly fold and turn it back on itself until all the air has been knocked out.
- Roll the dough into a sausage and then open it up a bit lengthways, sprinkle down lengthways half of the speck, gorgonzola, walnuts and parmesan cheese (Picture 5 and 6).
- Stretch and fold over the dough that is furtherest away from (picture 7).
- Add the rest of the speck, walnuts and gorgonzola and half of the parmesan cheese (picture 8).
- Stretch the dough that is closest to you over the ingredients (picture 9).
- Roll the sausage a tiny bit (picture 10).
- Starting from the smallest end roll the dough into a big bun (picture 11).
- Then roll it into a sausage again, you want to get all the ingredients dispersed throughout the dough (picture 12), add a little bit of flour if you need to as you may find the cheese starts to stick to the work surface.
- Cut the dough into 8 equal sized pieces and then work them into balls and position them onto your baking tray (picture 13). Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 1 hour or until they have doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C
- Sprinkle over the remaining parmesan cheese (picture 14) and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until the bread rolls are golden brown (picture 15).
- Remove the baking paper and allow to cool on a cooling rack.