Bacon, Tomato, and Cheddar Loaf (and an amazing giveaway!!)

Bacon, Tomato, and Cheddar Bread...  cooled and sliced.

Hello all!  How have you all been?  I've been on a bit of a hiatus...  more than 7 months actually...  but I'm back!  I found myself missing getting on here and chronicling my adventures in the kitchen and sharing my creations with you.  For the better part of this year, anytime I found some time to get on my computer, it always turned into catching up on work email.  While I'm sure the late night email catch-ups will continue to happen, I've made a promise to myself to make time for my blogging as well.  Because you guys... I really do love it and I've missed it!

You'd think I'd just wait until the new year to get back on the blogging scene since the holidays can be so busy, but an amazing opportunity presented itself a little while ago and I'm so excited to share it with all of you!  You may remember that I used to be a part of a super cool group of food bloggers called Virtual Potluck.  Whelp, consider this our reunion tour.  One of the members of our group, Donna Currie, just had a cookbook published!  How amazing is that??!!  She asked us all to get back together to help her shout to the world that she is now a published cookbook author and every single one of us couldn't say yes fast enough.  Yay Donna!

Donna's cookbook - order your copy today!

Donna's book, Make Ahead Bread, is available for sale on Amazon. If you'd like an autographed copy, you can order one from Barbed Wire Books.

You can find Donna on her blog, Cookistry, or on Facebook and Twitter.

Check out what everyone else in the Virtual Potluck group made from this awesome book!  
The participating bloggers (besides me) are:

• Shelby from Diabetic Foodie
• Milisa from Miss in the Kitchen
• Matt from Thyme in Our Kitchen
• Susan from 30a Eats
• Rachel from Rachel Cooks
• Donna from Cookistry
• Vanessa from Groovy Foody
• Marnely from Cooking with Books
• Jay from Bite and Booze
• Theresa from Foodhunters Guide to Cuisine
• Heather from Farmgirl Gourmet

Since this is a party in honor of our newly published friend, there MUST be gifts, don't ya think?  Well, here is where it gets good for YOU.  Several sponsors have donated some pretty amazing products for all of us to give away to you over the next three weeks.  Wait until you see what you can win...  it's awesome!  Here's a tease: one of the prizes in the grand prize pack is a food processor!!

See how I made the delicious bread you see pictured above AND all the details of what you can win and HOW you can win it after the jump!

First, let me share with you how I made this delicious bread.  I chose this recipe out of all the recipes in the cookbook because it's right down my alley: it's savory and it involves bacon.  'Nuff said.  

You may find the idea of baking your own bread intimidating, but that's the great thing about this book... all of the recipes are "make ahead" recipes.  This means that you do all the work the day before you want to actually bake the bread, then on baking day you just pull your dough out of the fridge and pop it into the oven.  You have yourself some fresh baked bread about an hour later.  Awesome.  

Here is a step-by-step on how I made this bread.  You'll find the details of the super mega awesome giveaway toward the bottom of this post.  


I started by frying up 6 strips of bacon and chopping that up.  Then chopped up some cheddar cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.

Chopped bacon

Chopped sun-dried tomatoes

Cubed cheddar cheese

I tossed the above three ingredients into the bowl of my stand mixer along with some room temp water, dry yeast, sugar, bread flour, semolina flour, duck fat (yes, I had this hanging around in my pantry, don't you?), and kosher salt.

All the ingredients in the stand mixer bowl before mixing

 Using the dough hook, I let my stand mixer do all the work and combine these ingredients into a nice elastic, soft dough.  Once the dough came together, I had the mixer knead the dough for another couple minutes to ensure elasticity.

Here's what the dough looked like after kneading in the stand mixer

Next, I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for about an hour and a half.

Here's the dough after rising for over an hour - doubled in size

While the dough was rising, I buttered my 9 x 5-inch Silverstone bread pan.  

9 x 5-inch bread loaf pan provided to me by Silverstone

 I then turned out the dough onto a floured cutting board and followed the instructions in the recipe of how fold the dough so that it perfectly fits into the loaf pan.  Here's how I did it in pictures...

Pat the dough into a rough 8-inch square

Fold the top half to about the middle of the dough and press the edge down to secure it

Fold the top over again, this time to within about an inch or so of the bottom

Grab the bottom of the dough and pull it up to meet the dough roll you've created and seal the seam.
Pinch the ends closed as well.  

Place the dough, seam side down, into the prepared loaf pan

Next I covered the loaf pan with plastic wrap and placed the pan into the fridge to allow the dough to rise overnight.

Here's what the dough looked like after rising in the fridge all night

The next day I heated my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, removed the plastic from the bread and popped it into the oven to bake for the next 55 minutes.  After the bread was done baking, I was easily able to remove the loaf from the loaf pan and allow it to cool on a wire rack.  Success!

The bread baking in the oven

The bread right after I took it out of the oven

This beautiful bread cooling completely on a wire rack - perfect!

This bread is amazing eaten with just some good olive oil and a little sprinkle of sea salt

 This bread was so delicious and really not that difficult to make.  If you allow for the time to put it together the day before, you will be more than happy with the finished product when it comes out of your oven.  Not to mention how it makes your house smell...  what's better than the smell of freshly baked bread?

Oh yeah...  I did mention a giveaway, right??  Yes!  Ok, here are the details of what you could win and you'll see the area below where you can enter.  Good luck!

For the giveaway, we'd like to thank our sponsors who generously offered some fantastic prizes:

• Taunton Press, the publisher of Donna's book, is supplying a total of 12 copies of Make Ahead Bread, one to each winner.
• Magimix is giving one winner a Magimix 3200XL 12-Cup Food Processor in Brushed Chrome.
• WÜSTHOF is giving one winner a CLASSIC 9-inch Double Serrated Bread Knife 
• Silverstone is giving one winner a 5-piece set of bakeware (11x17 cookie pan, 10x15 cookie pan, 9x13 covered baking pan, 9x5 loaf pan and 9-inch cake pan) in the winner's choice of red or blue.
• King Arthur Flour is giving one winner a rye bread baking kit.
• Duralex is giving one winner a 9-piece set of mixing bowls.
• Harold Import Company is giving three winners a made-in-the-USA hardwood baker’s rolling pin (It's the baker's pin, with no handles.)
• Microplane is giving each of the 12 winners an Elite Zester, Cube Grater, and Spiral Cutter.
• GIR is giving each of the 12 winners a silicone scraper.
• King Arthur Flour is giving each of the 12 winners a coupon for a bag of flour of your choice (good at your local supermarket) and a plastic bench scraper.
• And Walker's Shortbread is supplying cookies to three winners.

In addition to supplying items for the giveaway, a special thanks to Taunton Press, Silverstone, Microplane and WÜSTHOF for supplying products to me and all the other bloggers to work with.   


HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN WIN!! 

Giant Super Grand Prize:

Make Ahead Bread cookbook

Magimix 3200XL 12-Cup Food Processor in Brushed Chrome

9-Piece set of Duralex Mixing Bowls

Made in the USA hardwood baker’s rolling pin from Harold Import Company

Microplane Elite Zester, Cube Grater, and Spiral Cutter

GIR scraper

Coupon for a free KAF bag of flour of their choice to use at their local supermarket and a plastic scraper

One package of Walker’s Shortbread Cookies

Really Big Grand Prize:

Make Ahead Bread cookbook

WÜSTHOF CLASSIC 9-inch Double Serrated Bread Knife

5-Piece set of Silverstone Bakeware in winner’s choice of red or blue

Made in the USA hardwood baker’s rolling pin from Harold Import Company

Microplane Elite Zester, Cube Grater, and Spiral Cutter

GIR scraper

Coupon for a free KAF bag of flour of their choice to use at their local supermarket and a plastic scraper

One package of Walker’s Shortbread Cookies

Grand Prize:

Make Ahead Bread cookbook

Rye Bread Baking Kit from King Arthur Flour

Made in the USA hardwood baker’s rolling pin from Harold Import Company

Microplane Elite Zester, Cube Grater, and Spiral Cutter

GIR scraper

Coupon for a free KAF bag of flour of their choice to use at their local supermarket and a plastic scraper

One package of Walker’s Shortbread Cookies

NINE MORE WINNERS GET:

Make Ahead Bread cookbook

Microplane Elite Zester, Cube Grater, and Spiral Cutter

GIR scraper

Coupon for a free KAF bag of flour of their choice to use at their local supermarket and a plastic scraper

You have 3 weeks from the date of this blog post to enter to win - GOOD LUCK!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Do you want to know more about the sponsors? You can find them on their websites and social media, here:

Taunton on Twitter and Facebook.

Magimix on Twitter and Facebook.

WÜSTHOF on Twitter and Facebook.

Silverstone would like you to follow Pots and Pans on Twitter and Facebook.

Duralex on Twitter and Facebook.

GIR on Twitter and Facebook.

Harold Import Company on Twitter and Facebook.

Microplane on Twitter and Facebook.

King Arthur Flour on Twitter and Facebook.

Walker's Shortbread on Facebook.