Kaas-Uien Brood (Cheese-Onion Bread)

I forget exactly how I ended up on a Dutch food blog, but I ended up finding quite a few recipes that piqued my interest. This onion-cheese bread was one of them. I ended up searching out a few different recipes to compare and contrast. What I mostly concluded was that there's no consensus on how to make it. Some recipes used water, some used milk, some used both. Some used only one onion per loaf, some used up to five! Some included sweeteners like sugar and/or honey, others didn't. The only real consensus I found was that it's a fairly flat loaf (like a foccacia) and the onions go on raw. Everything else was variable.

I ended up (more-or-less) following the original recipe I found. I swapped out some of the all-purpose (white) flour for hard whole wheat flour. I also held back a portion of the flour since I know that bread recipes written by folks who aren't used to baking bread are often a bit on the dry side. This turned out to be the right call! Even with 1/4 c. of the flour held back, I still needed to add ~1/4 c. of additional water just to make a reasonable (if still somewhat tight) dough. The recipe below has been adjusted to accont for this.

Kass-Uien Brood

Adapted from The Dutch Table

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. warm water
• 1/2 Tbsp. active dry yeast
• 1 c. hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 c. milk
• 2 small onions, halved and sliced
• 2 c. grated Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Sprinkle yeast over warm water and set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Combine whole wheat flour with the salt and 1 c. of the all-purpose flour and make a well in the centre.
3. Pour the yeast mixture and the milk into the well in the centre of the flour.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, working from the centre outward.
5. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and knead for 10-20 minutes, working in the additional 1/4 c. flour as needed.
6. Shape into a ball and place in a covered bowl to rise for 60-90 minutes. (Poke with a wet finger to test for doneness. If the hole doesn't fill in at all, it's ready to be knocked back.)
7. Knead a few strokes, shape back into a ball, and return to covered bowl to rise for another 45-60 minutes. (Use the same finger poke test to check for doneness.)
8. Knock back again and shape into a 1.5cm thick rectangle.
9. Transfer dough to a greased baking sheet and sprinkle with sliced onions and grated cheese.
10. Set aside to rise for ~30 minutes.
11. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 20-30 minutes.