Bleu Cheese and Walnut filled Loaf

A week after Chris and I baked the Chocolate and Cherry Loaf, we were back in the kitchen to take on our next baking project; a Bleu Cheese and Walnut filled loaf. This was another recipe that we found while watching the Great British Baking Show‘s Masterclass episodes.

Knowing that we were definitely bitten by the baking bug, we decided to pick up a Kitchenaid mixer. Brand new, they’re pretty expensive. We found a used one on Facebook for less than half, and it’s in perfect condition. A few short hours after we had it home, we were pouring the ingredients into the mixer and putting it to good use.

Diving in

Like every cooking show you’ve ever watched, the bakers on the show would explain what item they were putting into the bowl next. Several times we’ve heard them say, “If you don’t have this item, you can substitute it with this other item.” This recipe actually called for Roquefort cheese. But, we struck out finding any, so we went with a more generic bleu cheese.

This was a pretty fun loaf to make. You start by mixing in all the ingredients for the dough and then incorporate all the walnuts. The amount of walnuts that were called for were almost comical. It looked as if the mixture was roughly 50/50 dough to walnuts.

Once the dough was ready, it was time to add the bleu cheese. You start by cutting the dough into 1/4ths and then flattening each piece out into a rectangle. You smear the bleu cheese onto each piece and then roll them up like a sausage making each piece end up being about a foot long. You roll each one up and place them all in a spring-form pan.

When it bakes, the 4 rolled up sections join together to make one big loaf that looks like a pull-apart. And that’s exactly what we did.

Just about every bite has these little pockets of sharpness from the bleu cheese, and a smokey-sweet crunch from the walnuts. Oh, and when you get both in the same bite… pure joy.

We definitely learned a bunch from our first loaf of bread the previous week, so we were much better prepared for our second loaf. I think we both had a bit more confidence as we went into this bake than we did the week prior. And I think that showed in the final result.

This is definitely a loaf I will want to bake again. If you want to check out the recipe we followed, you can find it here.