Jalapeno Cheese Bread

This recipe yields enough dough to make 3 reasonably sized loaves, or you could make one monster loaf or any combination in between. Hey, you do you, is all I'm saying. There's room for customization in this recipe, and I'll try to point out areas for that as I go along.

You'll need the following:

• 1 thermometer
• mixing bowls
• loaf pans and/or baking sheet
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• Safety glasses (optional, but I recommend them whenever I work with jalapenos)

And for the bread itself:

• 8 cups bread flour (about 2.5 pounds, varies depending on which type of flour used)
• 4 cups cheese (about 1 pound) I used a mix of montery jack and colby jack
• 1 cup chopped peppers (about 5 large peppers) I used jalapenos. Serrano, anaheims, habaneros, etc add varying degrees of heat, flavor and color.
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 cups hot water
• 3 pkgs (0.25 oz) active dry yeast
• 8 tbsp sugar
• 4tbsp vegetable oil

Slice your peppers into rings, then chop those until you have pieces of the preferred size. I also sliced some rings and set aside to top the loaves.

Shred your cheese. If you want bigger, cheesier nodes in the bread, cut into cubes instead.

Mix the flour, peppers, cheese, salt and 7 tsp of the sugar in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate vessel, mix the 2 cups hot water (temperature should be about 115 F or as specified on yeast package) yeast, remaining sugar, let set for 10 minutes, mix then add oil.

Add the liquid mix to the dry ingredients and knead for about 15 minutes. There will be a little more flour than needed, which can be used to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface.

put the dough in a greased bowl, flip the dough ball to ensure the entire ball is covered.

Cover bowl with towel and put in warm, dry location (my mother-in-law suggested using the oven, turned off, which works great)

Let dough sit 45-60 minutes, or until doubled in size

Grease your loaf pans. I prefer butter

Punch down the doubled up dough ball, split into 3 roughly evenly sized wads

Foam into loaf shapes, stick in loaf pans or onto baking sheet.

Let each sit for about 45-60 minutes or until doubled in size

Top with jalapeno rings and shredded cheese

Bake at 325 for 45-60 minutes or until golden

Once removed, let the loaves sir for about 15 minutes before removing from pans

Let loaves rest 60 minutes before slicing.