Onion Loaf

In our home, Brett is the bread master.  In the past 7 months he has really taken an interest in baking yeast breads and I've gotta say that I'm incredibly proud of some of the things he's made so far.  But this past week takes the cake!  He made an onion loaf recipe from his trusty Taste of Home Baking Book and it was gorgeous and delicious.

He made the dough as usual (I assisted)  by carefully taking the temperature of the water and milk.  This time, maybe because the weather is slightly warmer, I feel like he got a bigger and faster rise out of the dough.  This bread is different from other breads he's made because it has a filling.  The filling consists of parmesan cheese, paprika, dried minced onion, and butter.  It doesn't look that pretty, but it was good.  He divided the dough into three portions, rolled them out into the specified dimensions, spread the filling out evenly, and then rolled it up jelly roll style.

Once he had done that with all three portions, I got to teach Brett how to braid.  He caught on very quickly and made a gorgeous loaf that he let rise once again.

When it came out of the oven I was so proud of Brett!  I couldn't believe that we had made this in our own little kitchen!  It looked so professional!  It was soft with a hint of the onion mixture running all throughout.  The one thing Brett said he would do differently is not spread the filling toward the edge as much.  In the picture in the cookbook there is a distinct swirl of filling, whereas in ours...not so much.  But all in all the onion loaf (and its baker) gets an A+.

Never fear, Brett and I did not eat the entire gigantic loaf in one evening.  We have had trouble in the past with storing our homemade bread but thank goodness for the internet, because I found the perfect solution.  We got out an old cereal bag that coincidentally Brett had just finished that day, put the bread in it, taped it shut, and put it in a cabinet.  It stayed pretty fresh for a couple of days so we could eat the bread at our leisure.  Easy huh?!