Fontina and Black Pepper-Stuffed Crusty Loaves

Friday while I was ahem...working I happened upon a foodie blog that hilariously described a very yummy sounding and looking loaf of cheesy bread. Who can resist cheesy bread I ask you?? Not me, especially not 25 minutes before my lunch break. The blog linked back to the original recipe on the King Arthur Flour website. Look at that picture! And they use the words "cheese" and "volcano" for Christ's sake! I am only HUMAN!
Saturday I picked up the goodies and got the starter going. I let it sit overnight and it looked like this when I woke up Sunday.

I added the rest of the ingredients to the starter.
It was kinda dry and looked like this.
























I kneaded it for 10 minutes til it was pretty smooth.








That's kneaded by hand, people, Tee Tee doesn't own a mixer)











Then I set it in an oiled bowl and let it proof.


















The first proofing took just under an hour even though the recipe said it might take up tot 2. But I do have a hot kitchen, or else it just knows I am impatient as most of the recipes I make at home never take as long to rise as the recipe says it will.




After 50 minutes it looked like this.







I like to use a bowl with measurements on it so I can see exactly how much volume I've achieved.
















The original recipe called for gruyere but the only cheese that looked good at my store was the Fontina so I used that instead. So I grated up 3 cups -yes, an extra half cup, don't judge me!
























I pressed the dough out to the size of the sheet pan and sprinkled on the cheese (more like heaped) and decided that it needed some fresh ground black pepper too.

























Then I rolled it up covered it and left it to rise again, easy peasy!
























When it was nice and puffy I sliced it up in to 5 boule-type loaves and set it on the baking sheets cheese side up.



















These beauties baked for about 35 minutes and came out looking like magic.
For whatever reason Blogspot doesn't want to right my image. But you get the idea. They were tasty as hell but next time more black pepper and I MUST invest in some parchment paper cause I'm not sure my sheet trays will ever recover :)