Gruyere-Stuffed Crusty Loaves, King Arthur Flour Bakealong for March

This weekend I made the Gruyere-Stuffed Crusty Loaves that were the March recipe in the King Arthur Flour Bakealong. The recipe makes four little loaves of bread that are about four servings each, I would estimate. I baked two and froze the others for later.

This recipe took the most time of the three I've done so far. There was a lot of "inactive prep time" for the dough to rise and I kept thinking of the Great British Bake-off tent while I was waiting. On Saturday night, I made the starter. It was drier than the one on the King Arthur blog, even after resting overnight. Then I made the dough Sunday after grocery shopping - because we were out of bread flour and I needed to buy the cheese - and it needed to rise another two hours. After lunch, I shredded the cheese and patted out the dough. Once covered in shredded cheese, the dough was rolled up and sealed, then left to rise again for about 90 minutes. At last, I cut the roll into four slices and baked two in mid-afternoon. Luckily they turned out great and the one we ate right away was delicious. The cheese makes the slice taste a bit salty, and H. thought they reminded him of soft pretzels.

We reheated the second loaf today for lunch. It was still excellent. The next test will be whether the frozen ones turn out as well. They looked pretty sad and flat when I took them out of the freezer and wrapped them up today, but hopefully the dough is resilient.