I’ve become such a fan of baking doughs lately, that I think I’ll need somebody to hold me back from doing so, soon! The colder months inevitably attract me to comfort foods involving a lot of cheese and bread combinations like this one.
The combination of red cheddar and chives gives this a very festive feel for sure, and once you have a grasp on how to make the dough (which is extremely easy) you’re set to mix and match the fillings of your dough balls.
Other ideas for fillings could involve filling the balls with feta cheese and caramelized red onion, or some fried mushrooms, onion, and garlic, with some delicious fresh herbs and spices mixed in. I really don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the taste of these guys, so I encourage you to make them and let me know what you think. Simple, fun, and tasty, what else could one want?
Also, I’m very much open to suggestions as to what kind of recipes you’d like to see on my blog in the coming weeks/months, so just shoot me a message. I can’t wait to hear from you.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
- Self-raising flour, 250 g
- 155 mL lukewarm water
- Dry yeast, 4 g
- Salt, 1 tbsp
- Sugar, 1 tbsp
- Olive oil, 9 g
- Black pepper, sprinkle
For the filling:
- Red cheddar cheese, 200 g
- Fresh chives, 5 g
Method:
- Begin by making your dough.
- I first attached the balloon whisk to my Kenwood kMix electric mixer, and added the yeast and water to the mixing bowl first. Mix the wet mixture until the yeast is well mixed into the solution. I then added the oil, salt, pepper and sugar and mixed again well.
- Next, add the dough hook and begin at the slowest setting. Add a quarter of the flour, mix for a minute, take the bowl out and use a spatula to clear any flour stuck to the mixing bowl. Repeat this process four times. When all of the flour is added to the bowl and scraped off the sides, keep the dough hook running slowly for a further 5 minutes.
- Once an even ball is formed, leave the dough to rise for at least an hour.
- Chop up the cheddar cheese into 24 small, equal squares. Fry the chives off for 2 minutes and set aside.
- Place the dough onto a sterilized countour, sprinkled with some extra flour.
- Kneed out the dough into a nice rectangle (the dough should be about 1 cm in thickness throughout).
- I used a 6 cm dough press to cut discs out of the dough. Keep kneading the extra dough into an even amount and continue to press out equal sized disks until the dough is all used up. If you are above or below 24 discs, don’t worry!
- Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, place some baking paper on 2 large baking trays and crack and whisk one egg to use as your egg wash.
- For each disk, place a small sprinkle of chives onto the centre, followed by your cheddar and fold it into a ball as I have done in my recipe reel, above.
- Space out all balls onto your tray, rub the top of each with some egg wash and place them into the oven.
- Bake for 13-15 mins, leave to cool for 10 mins and serve immediately. They go great by themselves on a platter with some dips or they can be dipped into a cassorole or soup. They are amazing.
The Food Anatomist 