I was talking with a friend from church and she let me know that her husband loved the sourdough jalapeño cheese bread and expressed a desire to learn to do sourdough. I gave her some starter from mine the next time I saw her and promised to text her some recipes.
Originally I learned to make sourdough jalapeño cheddar bread from the blog Little Spoon Farm (here’s the original link: https://littlespoonfarm.com/jalapeno-cheddar-sourdough-bread-recipe/ ) but over the past couple years of my sourdough journey the recipe has been simplified several times and now I have my own cheat version.
Here’s my cheat version that I sent my friend:
Mix 4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup sourdough starter, with 1 & 1/2 cups water until you have a shaggy dough (it won’t be perfect but try not to have any dry flour sitting on the bottom).
Let above mixture sit covered (I like to use a glass Pyrex bowl with a plastic lid, some people use a wet towel but you can’t let it dry out and I don’t like rewetting towels all the time) for about an hour. The water and sourdough will penetrate the flour and work their magic to make the dough workable.
Dissolve 2 teaspoons salt in a little water (I usually use about 1/8 cup) add to dough and mix in a kneading motion until the salt mixture is worked into dough.
Let sit (every time you let it sit it needs covered so it doesn’t dry out) for approximately another 30 minutes then do a set of “stretch and folds”; basically you reach underneath the dough and stretch a side out as much as you can without tearing the dough and then fold it into the middle and you do this all the way around the dough 3 times.
You let it set another 30 minutes and do another set of stretch and folds as described above and repeat again until you’ve done 3 or 4 stretch and folds. At this point my house is warm enough that it’s ready for shaping and putting in the oven. (Note: dough should be airy, stretchy hold it’s shape and have at least a few bubbles when it’s ready it may take more time to rise depending on your starter and house temperature.) If I am not ready for that I just put it in the fridge in my bowl with the lid, but you can put it in a ziplock or wrap it with plastic wrap at this point to put in fridge.
When I am ready I preheat a dutch oven to 400 degrees F (I will tell you how to do it without one too). Then I will shape dough on lightly floured surface into a square or rectangle just under a half inch thick. I sprinkle on a layer of shredded cheese, I think I average 3/4-1 cup cheese, (I use whatever cheese I have on hand but have found my favorites are sharp orange cheddar or Colby-Jack) then spread out canned- sliced-jalapeños over cheese I just place them by hand evenly across. Now roll up dough tucking the end into itself as much as possible then roll dough the other direction to take it from being long to being more of a ball/roll and tuck end as much as possible again. At this point you take sides and tuck them underneath to make it as round as possible keeping any seams on the bottom or tucking them there as needed. Cut a slash between a quarter and a half inch deep on top of bread to allow it to expand and immediately put it into preheated Dutch oven. Note: It’s easier to make a “sling” or hammock out of parchment paper and place the dough on that (preferably before slashing) to drop it into the Dutch oven without getting burnt.
For Dutch oven cook for 30 minutes covered on 450 then uncover and turn oven down to 400 to cook for 20 more minutes then pull out to cool and preferably let cool 20-30 minutes before slicing (I know it’s hard but it prevents the middle from being gummy). The bread will still be warm to enjoy after this necessary cooling time.
I started my bread making journey without a Dutch oven and just used parchment paper on a cookie sheet, that changes your temperatures to either 375 degrees or 400 degrees (depending on your oven) for approximately 45 minutes. (When you thump fully cooked bread on the bottom it sounds kinda hollow I know that’s not super helpful but the best way to know is experiment with your oven after a couple of loaves you’ll have time and temp down with no need for thumping). The reason bread is recommended to cook in a Dutch oven is because it traps steam and makes the crust crusty but some people add dishes of water or use other tricks in their ovens to make up for the steam (I never came up with a method of that I liked so I just put up with a slightly softer crust until we got a Dutch oven.