Sun-dried Tomato & Asiago Crusty Artisan Bread
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 19 hours, with rest times
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
- Category: Baking
- Cuisine: Italian
Description
The other week when I made my penne vodka recipe, I realized upon serving that the dish was screaming for a good slice of bread. Immediately, I thought a sun-dried tomato and Asiago cheese bread would be DELICIOUS with the penne vodka.
This bread is scary to make, I’m not going to lie. You are going to question yourself A LOT and OFTEN. Have faith. It will work out!
This is a wet dough, and when I first started working with wet doughs, I was very insecure. It didn’t seem right and I kept wanting to add more flour, which ultimately made it too dense and unenjoyable to eat. And I would get so frustrated trying to work with the dough and it constantly sticking to my hands.
So let me walk you through the process here. All bakers, and particularly bread makers, would agree that weighing your flour is a much safer approach than measuring it. You can get very cheap, yet well-rated, kitchen scales on Amazon. I think I paid $10 for my little scale. If you don’t have a scale, do not tightly pack the cups when measuring. Dip, scoop, shake to “even” straight, and place in your stand-mixer bowl.
Prepare your yeast mix and once frothy, add to the flour/salt mixture, using the bread hook attachment to slowly combine. You may need a rubber spatula to push down the sides to ensure all of the flour combines. Once combined, I turned my mixer up to about a 4 and let it slap the dough on the side of the bowl for about 5 minutes. This allowed me to skip the step of manually kneading the dough, and therefore not getting my hands all goopy!
You can see how this dough looks sticky, right? Don’t worry! This is what is going to give you a light, chewy bread!
Take a handful of flour and sprinkle over the top of the dough. Without try to mix the flour in, gently remove the dough from the bowl and flip so the flour is now on the bottom. Flour the top again with a handful of flour. Throw a towel over the bowl and let sit until doubled in size ~ about an hour.
If you want to follow to a T my process for making this, let the dough stay on the counter for about 4 to 6 hours. Then remove the towel and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerat the dough for about 12 hours (overnight). The next morning, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let sit for about an hour. Prepare your working surface with a generous amount of flour. I know most recipes say “lightly flour,” but if you do that, your dough is going to stick to the counter, you’re going to get frustrated, you’re going to curse me to the gods, the dough will be thrown in the garbage with a big “screw that!” and you will never want to try one of my recipes again!
Too much? Okay, so generously flour your working surface! Using your hands, stretch the dough to be about 12 inches by 9 inches.
Now spread the sun-dried tomatoes evenly across this. The majority of the oil should have been drained from the tomatoes before placing them on the bread, but it’s okay if there is some residual oil!
Now cover this with the Asiago cheese!
The next few steps were when I started questioning myself… did I just spend all this time and this bread is going to be a FAIL? Is this too moist? Will this cook properly? Is this going to be any good???
Deep breath. Just trust that the handling of the dough going forward will not feel like handling a traditional dough. That’s okay.
So, cheese and tomatoes are on. Now fold the dough like a letter ~ into thirds…
Now do the same lengthwise. Pull a third toward you, flip the dough around and pull the last third toward you.
Flip the dough to be seam side down. Carefully work to pull the edges down and under, forming a ball. The sun-dried tomatoes may try to escape! Push them back in and pull and wrap another section of dough over it. They may not stay perfectly contained! That’s OKAY!
Using the same bowl you used to mix and ferment in, lightly dust the sides and bottoms with flour. Place the dough back in and dust with additional flour.
Cover with a towel and let sit for an hour to rise slightly. Around the 45 minute mark, place your Dutch oven in the oven, rack positioned in the middle. Now preheat your oven to 450°.
When ready, transfer the dough, seam side up, to a long piece of parchment paper. If sun-dried tomatoes are exposed, pinch dough over the top. It doesn’t have to be perfect!
Carefully pull the Dutch oven from the oven and place the dough (on the parchment paper) carefully inside. Cover with the lid and place in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes. Prepare your egg wash before the 30 minutes is up. When the 30 minutes is up, being careful not to burn yourself, remove the Dutch oven lid and generously coat the top of the bread with egg wash. Then sprinkle the remaining Asiago cheese on top. Return to the oven, without the lid, for 15 minutes. It should now have a nice golden top! Carefully remove from the Dutch oven and allow to cool!
Look at those layers! We couldn’t resisted and had to cut ourselves a slice right away! All my worries drained away with a big sigh of relief. This was fantastic!
Enjoy!
Ingredients
Bread Base
500 g all-purpose flour (about 3 loosely scooped cups)
1 packet of yeast (2 1/4 tsps)
2 TB honey
1 1/4 cups warm water (around 110°)
1/2 TB salt
Additional Ingredients
1/2 cup Asiago cheese, shredded + an additional 1/4 to 1/2 cup for sprinkling on top
3/4 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes, oil drained
1 egg, whisked
Flour, for dusting
Instructions
Whisk the yeast and honey into the water. Let sit for about 5 minutes, or until frothy. Whisk to absorb the yeast.
In a standing mixer with the bread hook attachment, mix the flour with the salt. Slowly add the water mixture to the flour, pushing down the sides with a flat rubber spatula, as needed. Once thoroughly mixed, turn the speed of the mixer to about 4, letting the dough slap the side of the bowl for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle flour over the top of the dough. Unstick the dough from the side of the bowl and turn flour side down. Sprinkle more flour on top of the dough. Cover with a towel and let the dough to rise ~ about 1 hour. I let it sit for 6 hours before refrigerating it overnight. That additional fermenting period makes for a more flavorful bread. After sitting in the refrigerator overnight, remove the bowl and let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Flour your working surface and, using your hands, pull the dough into a rectangle ~ about 12” x 9”. Spread the sun-dried tomatoes evenly over the dough then top with 1/2 cup of Asiago cheese.
Fold the dough like a letter ~ take one third and fold it over the center and then take the last third and fold on top of that. Do the same thing lengthwise ~ pull a third toward you over the center, turn around and fold the last third toward you over the center. Flip the dough seam side down. Working carefully, fold the dough into a ball, folding under. If tomatoes rise to the surface, push and fold them under. The ingredients should be well mixed and your dough shaped back into a ball. (Photos in the description can be a huge help here!)
Dust flour in the same bowl used for rising. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and lightly sprinkle with flour. Cover the bowl with a towel and let sit for 1 hour to raise slightly. At about the 45 minute mark, start preheating the oven to 450° with your Dutch oven pot inside.
When ready, place the dough on parchment paper, seam side up. If the sun-dried tomatoes are exposed, pinch dough across and over them. Sprinkle lightly in flour. Remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven and carefully place the dough and parchment paper inside the Dutch oven. Place the lid on it and place on the center rack in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes.
Working quickly (but carefully! Don’t burn yourself!), remove the lid from the Dutch oven and generously brush the egg wash over the top of the loaf. Sprinkle the remaining Asiago cheese over the top ~ don’t worry if some of the cheese falls off! Return to the oven without the lid. Continue to cook 15 minutes, or until a nice golden crust appears.
Remove from the oven. Carefully transfer the bread to a cooling rack.
Serve and enjoy!
Keywords: Bread, Baking, Italian Bread, Sun-dried tomatoes, Asiago, Crusty Bread, Artisan Bread
