Mozzarella & Garlic Butter Bread Loaf

This mozzarella and garlic butter bread is something special. This freshly baked bread is downy soft with a filling of soft, oozy mozzarella and a generous slathering of garlic butter. It is the perfect winter bread to accompany soups or roasts!

I cannot express how much I loved this bread with its surprise filling of gooey mozzarella. Each melting mozzarella filled boule was made for dunking in a soup (and an amazing soup recipe is to come up on Saturday, keep an eye out for that Darling Reader).

This bread was made with tangzhong roux to make it super soft but also to give it keeping power and I knew that between the two of us, we couldn't eat it all within a day. I know I go on about tangzhong a lot but this one little 3 minute step has changed my bread life so much. Pleeeease try it.

Now that winter has fully made herself at home and I'm now ensconced within layers of clothing, I'm baking breads and making soup like a demon. It has become a demonic obsession with me (and look out for more breads this winter, I'm making two next week!).

Speaking of demonic obsessions, I once had a friend called Lucas who was born the same day as me. He drove a combi and sometimes lived in it and he looked sort of surfie angelic with long, blonde curls and a big smile. He was also a noise musician and his dream and obsession was to go overseas one day to further his noise music career. He also wanted to go out with me (which I never quite understood because I wasn't into noise music or living in combis).

One day Lucas thought that he'd play a sample of his noise music I think to impress me. Out blasted the most unpleasant music I had ever heard. It was demonic sounding and so difficult to listen to. I think I lasted about 30 seconds before I asked him to turn it off.

I told Mr NQN about Lucas as we were talking musical genres and played him a sample of the noise music that was as close to what Lucas played to me. I added, "I have no idea why he wanted to go out with me. He wasn't my type and I'm sure I wasn't his".

"Maybe you last the longest with his music and that others could only last for 10 seconds," he suggested. I think he was right there. I'll stick with bread obsessions.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever listened to noise music? If you're interested, here is some noise music that sounded similar to what he played to me. But a little warning, even trying to find that clip for you was hard on my ears!

Mozzarella & Garlic Butter Bread

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 1.5 hours rising time (approximately)

Cooking time: 45 minutes

• 30g/1oz. bread flour
• 125ml/4flozs. milk
• 30g/1oz. butter

• 2 eggs, room temperature

• 530g/18.7ozs. bread flour (plus extra for rolling)

• 170g/6ozs. milk
• 40g/1.4ozs. sugar
• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 325g/11.5ozs. bocconcini balls (6 balls)
• 50g/1.7ozs. salted butter
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Step 1 - Firstly make the tangzhong roux. In a small saucepan whisk the flour and milk until smooth. Heat on low to medium heat until it reaches 65C/149F and then whisk in the butter and eggs.

Step 2 - In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook mix the flour, milk, sugar and yeast together with a spatula. Then add roux mixture and then knead for 10-14 minutes until very elastic and you get the window pane effect where you can pull the dough apart with floured fingers and it won't break and you can see through the dough (it takes a while which is why I don't recommend doing this by hand unless you really, really want a workout). Shape into a ball and then cover and allow to double in size (about 1 hour in a warm, non draughty area). Make the garlic butter by melting the butter and mixing in the garlic powder.

Step 3 - Grease a loaf tin and preheat oven to 170C/340F. Punch dough down and knead in salt. Lightly flour a surface and cut dough into six pieces. Roll them out into a circle and brush with garlic butter. Place bocconcini ball inside and roll into a ball. Place in the tin and repeat with the remaining dough. Bake for 40-45 minutes and then immediately brush with more of the garlic butter. Serve with any extra garlic butter (I put the extra melted butter in a ramekin and then let it set).