This makes a lovely, fragrant, flavourful loaf. The dough was a bit strange, but the resulting bread was very nice. My only regret was that I didn't double the recipe. We're almost out already! I've still got some dill and cottage cheese left though, so hopefully I can do another batch sometime in the next few days. And this time I will double it.

Cottage Herb Loaf

From the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. oil
• 1/4 c. minced onion
• 1/2 c. warm water
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 c. cottage cheese
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. honey
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 375g hard (bread/strong/high grade) whole wheat flour

Directions

1. Heat oil over medium heat.
2. Cook onion in oil until softened and beginning to brown.
3. Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
4. Add cottage cheese, parsley, and dill to onion and gently warm.
5. Remove onion mixture from heat and stir in honey and egg.
6. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt and mix thoroughly.
7. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the yeast mixture and the cheese mixture. (Make sure that the cheese isn't too hot when you add it. If it seems overly warm, give it another few minutes to cool before mixing it in.)
8. Working from the centre outward, gradually mix the flour into the liquids until most of it has been incorporated.
9. Turn out onto your work surface and begin kneading. The dough may be quite sticky. Try to knead it for at least 10 minutes before you make a call on adding extra flour.
10. Knead for 15-30 minutes¹.
11. Shape into a smooth ball and place in a covered bowl to rise². Rise is done when a 1cm deep fingerprint (with a wet finger) doesn't fill in at all.
12. Knock dough back. Knead for a few more strokes if desired.
13. Shape back into a smooth ball and return to the covered bowl to rise again. Use the same test to determine when the second rise is done.
14. Knock back again and shape into a smooth ball, stretching gluten taut across the top.
15. Place the dough ball into a greased casserole dish or deep dish pie plate, cover, and let rise one more time. For the final rise, the dough should still slowly return the wet fingerprint.
16. Gently brush the top of the dough with oil and slash it if you like.
17. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 45-50 minutes.

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¹ You can probably get away with only 15 minutes if your kneading is very efficient. I always err toward kneading my bread for longer though since I don't seem to have a very efficient technique. ^Back
2 The original recipe suggests a warm rise for this bread. They recommend aiming for a temperature of ~32°C (90°F) for 45 minutes for the first rise. I didn't want to mess around with trying to set up a warm rise, so I just went with a longer, cooler rise: 20°C (68°F) for ~75 minutes. ^Back