Cottage Cheese, Dill, and Caramelized Shallot Bread

This cottage cheese, dill, and caramelized shallot bread is so moist and flavorful. 

This cottage cheese, dill, and caramelized shallot bread will make your house smell amazing when it is baking.

Cottage cheese? In bread? Why yes! It can pretty much substitute for most of the water or milk you would normally add, and it adds so much moistness.

Don't like cottage cheese? Neither do I. You should not let that stop you from trying this recipe, because you do not taste cottage cheese. At all.

Flavors I do love are both fresh dill and caramelized shallots. Shallots have a mild sweet flavor and resemble little onions. The layers are thinner than onions, and they have a faint hint of roasted garlic. They are less pungent than most onions, even if they do make your eyes water when you slice them.  I always have a few in the pantry for recipes that call for a small onion. I love the flavor that they add.

Not to mention the aroma that will fill your house when the bread is baking.

I'm not going to admit to making extra caramelized shallots just so I could eat them by the spoonful over the kitchen sink while the bread was rising. Nope. Wasn't me.

This recipe comes from my friend Michael, bread baker extraordinaire, from the Facebook group Artisan Bread Bakers. He used caramelized onions, and shaped this bread into three smallish free form loaves. His bread is nice and airy, with glorious slashes across the loaves.

I decided to use the dough to make a sandwich style loaf to use in a BLT. I actually added some smoked sun dried tomatoes to the bread, but was so conservative with them, that I couldn't really taste them.

This bread is amazing toasted and buttered or toasted with cheese. I also loved it spread with tomato marmalade (tomatoes roasted with basil, rosemary, and garlic).

For another wonderful bread using cottage cheese, be sure to check out this Buttermilk Cottage Dill Bread. In that recipe, the cottage cheese is actually cooked before adding into the dough.

Cottage Cheese, Dill, and Caramelized Shallot Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 434 grams cottage cheese, small curd, 4% fat
• 70 grams water
• 75 grams lightly caramelized shallots (start with about 1 1/2 cups raw chopped shallots before cooking)
• 7 grams instant yeast
• 434 grams bread flour, plus more for dusting or adding to the dough
• 10 grams fine sea salt
• 1/3 cup chopped dill (about 12 grams)

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the cottage cheese, water, caramelized shallots, and yeast. MIx with a spoon or the dough hook.
2. Add the flour, salt, and dill. With the dough hook, mix until just combined. Let rest, covered, for about 20 minutes.
3. Knead the dough with the dough hook on second speed for about 10 minutes, adding any extra flour, until you have a smooth and "tacky" dough. I added about 2 tablespoons of flour.
4. Form the dough into a ball, place it into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about 2 to 3 hours.
5. When the dough has risen, remove it from the bowl and shape it into a loaf. Place it into an oiled 9 inch by 4 inch loaf pan. You can also divide and shape the dough into other shapes and adjust the baking time. Cover the loaf with oiled plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour, until doubled.
6. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Place a tray on the bottom rack for steam. Note: You will add about a cup of boiling water to this pan right after placing the loaf in the oven. I also quickly sprayed the oven with water after about 5 minutes of baking. 
7. Bake the loaf for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 425 degrees F and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes. If the loaf is getting too brown, tent with foil. If your loaf is taking longer, remove it from the pan and lay it on its side on a wire rack and place it back in the oven until the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees F and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 1 1/2 pound loaf, or three small loaves