Do you have an undiagnosed case of mageirocophobia? That would be a fear related to some form of cooking.
If you do, you are not alone. People have all kinds of specific phobias about food and cooking. Apparently, there are people who are afraid of ketchup. There are people afraid of sticky peanut butter. And, there are poor souls who have a deep-seated fear of cheese. (I’m not making this up.) Those fears even have fear-specific names: arachibutyrophobia (peanut butter), motuusequusphobia (ketchup) and turophobia (cheese)–tongue-twisters all.
More mainstream is a fear of baking bread and working with yeast. Anecdotally, I have a friend, a superb cook, whose eyes glaze over when I suggest she bake bread and I’ll confess that I’ve had my own tense moments waiting for the yeast to froth and activate.
If you count yourself among the yeast-phobic but would like to give bread baking a go, here are a couple of excellent guides to yeast baking:
Yeast-Sally’s Baking Addiction
And, to speed you along your way toward anxiety-free bread baking, here is a spectacular recipe (I don’t use that word often here, so pay attention to this one!) for a Jalapeno Cheddar Bread. I’ve tested the recipe several times and it is as close to no-fail as I think you can come in bread baking. The resulting baked boule (a round loaf of bread in “baker’s talk”) is delicious, too–and beautiful! I remember the first time I baked this recipe, my out-of-the-oven-slathered-with-butter-first-taste reaction was a loud-enough “Wow!” to bring Sweet Juliet running into the room to check out the commotion. Juliet runs a tight ship.
Here is a photo of the crumb and a tasting slice slathered with cultured butter.
Here is the recipe.
Now I’ve got to go and clean my kitchen. There is a phobia for that, too. It is ataxophobia, a fear of clutter, untidiness and disorder.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 3 1/2 C. bread flour
- 2 1/2 C. shredded sharp cheddar cheese (divided)
- 2 jalapeno chiles (seeded and coarsely chopped)
- 1 jalapeno (seeded ad sliced into rings, divided)
- 1 T. kosher salt
- 2 C. warm water (105-110 degrees F.)
- 2 1/4 t. instant yeast
- 1 T. olive oil
Instructions
- Combine bread flour, 2 C. cheddar cheese, chopped jalapeno chiles and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir to evenly distribute the ingredients. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, combine the warm water (105-110 degrees F.) and the yeast. Stir and let sit for a few minutes.
- Pour the flour mixture on top of the yeast and water mixture. Stir with a silicone spatula until all ingredients are thoroughly combined and the dough begins to come together into a ball. Your dough will be moist and shaggy when it is properly mixed. Once your dough is mixed, use your hands (wet) or a spatula to fold the dough (still in the bowl) about 8 times. You do this by folding one side of the dough over the rest of the dough and toward the center; you are folding the dough into a slightly tighter ball--a boule. Turn the bowl as you do this so that all parts of the dough are folded. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let it rest (and rise) in a warm place for about an hour. At the end of your rise, the dough should have almost doubled in size. ( If you are at all confused about the folding process, you can find a very good video showing these steps by following the link that appears at under this recipe.)
- Remove the cover from the risen dough and repeat the folding (8 more folds/8 more turns of the bowl). Again, cover the dough. This time let it rise for about 30 minutes.
- While your dough is rising for the second time, put a Dutch oven (including the lid) into your oven and turn the oven to 450 degrees F. (Place the Dutch oven on a low rack in your oven.) Let your oven preheat for about 30 minutes.
- Prepare a work surface by lightly flouring it. (I used my Corian counter.) Flour your hands, too. Remove the dough from the bowl (I used a bench scraper for this but wet hands would work equally well). Do this carefully so that you don't totally deflate the dough. Once you have your dough out of the bowl and sitting on the lightly-floured counter, flip it over. This "flip" will make the dough easier to handle because your hands will be touching the side of the dough that has picked up some of the flour you sprinkled on your counter. Fold the dough towards the center 8 more times. Flip the dough oven again, placing it on a rectangular strip of parchment paper. The parchment paper will be used to keep the dough from sticking to the bottom of the Dutch oven and it will also be used to lift the dough into the hot Dutch oven without burning your hands. (Use the ends of the parchment strips like handles.) Brush the top of the dough with olive oil and gently press the remaining 1/2 C. of cheese onto top of the loaf. Use a sharp knife or a razor blade (I used the razor blade) to carve an "X" on top of the loaf. The "X" will allow the steam to escape from the dough as it is baking and will allow the dough to fully rise. Arrange the jalapeno rings on top of the cheese.
- Using heat-resistant gloves, carefully remove the hot Dutch oven from your oven and set it somewhere on your counter where the heat from the bottom of the Dutch oven will not damage anything. I usually put my Dutch oven on top of my heavy cutting board with a towel on top of the cutting board to give the cutting board some protection. Grab the two ends of the parchment strip on which you have placed your dough boule and lower the dough into the Dutch oven. Cover the Dutch oven with its lid and put it into the oven. Bake covered at 450 degrees F. for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the lid from the Dutch oven. (This is the fun part! The reveal! Your bread will have risen nicely and will be beginning to brown.) Put the Dutch oven (uncovered) back into the oven and bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the bread has turned a pretty golden brown. When done, the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Remove the Dutch oven from your oven and set it on a heat-resistant surface. Again, use the parchment "handles" to safely remove the bread from the Dutch oven. Allow the bread to cool on a rack before cutting it. The steam trapped inside the bread will continue to cook the bread further as it cools. Do not slice the bread until it has cooled. For ease in slicing, use a serrated knife.
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This recipe is adapted from one that appears here.
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