Cheddar and Jalapeño Sourdough

 I had planned on learning how to bake bread once I was retired but COVID-19 changed all that. At the start off the stay-at-home order, a friend reached out and asked me if I was interested in some sourdough starter. He assured me that baking bread was not that hard and that he would share a beginner's no-knead recipe and some YouTube videos. We even had a Zoom session one evening as he was prepping the ingredients. 

A few days later, he dropped off a small baggie of sourdough starter and I followed his directions on getting it established in my quart Bell jar. About 3 days later I had a 3/4 full jar of ripe, bubbly starter. 

My first number of loaves turned out quite well. I gave most of them away to neighbors and friends. Once I got the hang of it, I did have a few less than stellar loaves until I figured out that I was letting the bulk ferment go too long. Once I got back into following the time parameters, the bread was back on track. 

I won't go into the step-by-step of making the sourdough (just follow the link above) but I will say that once I had the basics down, I ready to branch out. At first I was thinking about an olive loaf but I wondered how much olives to add. Was a certain type of olive better than others? When do you add it in? So I got online a did some research. I found this website and once I saw the cheddar and jalapeño bread I knew that was the one I wanted to try first.  

This bread is intoxicating and no butter is needed when eating a slice. The smell of baking bread is already wonderful but the addition of cheese and jalapeños puts it over the top.

Cheddar and Jalapeño Sourdough

Ingredients:

• 
  Ingredients for sourdough bread
• Cheddar cheese (sharp preferred) - slightly heaping 1/2 cup cubed
  
• Jarred pickled jalapeños - heaping 1/3 cup coarsely chopped

Directions:

• Prepare sourdough as usual
• Add the cheese and jalapeños just after the initial mix of ingredients