The second loaf in my holiday baking spree is a staple in New Mexico… Green Chile Cheese bread! I’m still working on perfecting this recipe and I think I’m getting really close. I think the key to good coverage of cheese and chile on the top of the bread is to use sliced cheese instead of shredded.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my bakers yeast schedule.

Ingredients:

Dough

• 450g bread flour
• 50g whole wheat flour
• 390g filtered water @ 93’F
• 11g sea salt
• 2g bakers yeast
• 75g green chile (into the dough)
• 85g ‘southwest blend’ cheese slices that I cut into 3/4″ pieces
• pinch of dried, flaked, green chile
• 36g green chile (for the top)
• 2 slices ‘southwest blend’ cheese for topping

Method:

I started with a 30 minute autolyse with all of the flours and the water.

After mixing the dough, I performed 3 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes, separated by 20 minutes. The kitchen was hovering around 68’F so I went with a full 5 hour bulk fermentation.

I proofed for 45 minutes in a banneton before placing it in a dutch oven.

I baked the loaf in a preheated dutch oven at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 15 minutes. When I removed the lid of the dutch oven I put the additional two slices of cheese and green chile on top.

Result:

The appearance of the bread is fantastic, probably my best to date. The sliced cheese melted down and did a great job of covering the loaf. The green chile still kinda mounded up on the top of the loaf so next time I’ll make sure to distribute that a little better.

The crumb has a great distribution of green chile and cheese. I think from here on out I’ll go with sliced cheese that’s been cut up. I’ve experimented with bigger chunks of cheese from a block but feel like it doesn’t work as well as the smaller pieces.

The taste is great. The flavor of the green chile comes through in every bite. When you get some of the cheese it adds that much more flavor to it.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature: 69’F
• Started autolyse @ 7:15am
• Water temp: 93’F
• Dough was 90’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 8:00am
• Dough was 76’F after mixing
• 3 stretch and folds over first 90 minutes
• Started proof @ 1:05pm
• Into oven @ 1:55pm