This savory yeast free bread is perfect for having on hand to make some quick sandwiches or serve along with dinner. Loaded with hatch chiles and cheddar cheese, It aso makes great toast for breakfast!
You wouldn't be wrong if you saw this and thought of soda bread. That's essentially what it is but I always just assume that soda bread is only available around St Patrick's Day.
But It can be for anytime of the year, especially at a time when certain baking ingredients are hard to find like yeast! With this bread there's no waiting, no rising and no babysitting the dough. All you do is mix the ingredients in a bowl and dump the batter into your baking pan. I adapted my popular rosemary cheddar Irish soda bread to bring you this hatch chili cheddar cheese version and it didn't disappoint!
Making your yeast free chile cheese bread
Ingredients you'll need
- All purpose flour
- Cream of tartar
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Hatch chilies, canned is fine
- Cheddar cheese
- buttermilk
- egg
How does the bread rise without yeast?
Soda bread rise through a chemical reaction as opposed to a sugar/yeast reaction that creates gas in regular bread. That gas creates bubbles which gives the bread its lift. In this recipe the baking soda reacts with the acid in the buttermilk to provide the lift. One important thing to note is, soda bread will begin to react immediately once the ingredients are combined so try to mix it quickly and get the dough into the oven so it doesn't lose any of its height. Once the dough is mixed, shape it into a log and place it into your prepared loaf pan.
Serving the bread
Once cool you can slice it into thick wedges and serve with some really good butter. The bread isn't spicy, just packed with great flavor from the chile and cheddar combination.
Storing your yeast free bread
The bread will last about three days as long as it's wrapped in a sealed ziplock bag or wrapped in plastic wrap. On day three I'd recommend using any leftovers for toast. Once toasted the bread will become soft again with a tasty crusty layer on top, perfect for more butter!
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