Cheese and Garlic (Pull Apart) Bread

By á-178825

Serves 8-10. Excellent! Can make ahead and store in fridge overnight or freeze to store longer. To cook, thaw then follow recipe instructions to bake.

Ingredients

• 1 crusty loaf, preferably sourdough or Vienna
• 3/4 c shredded mozzarella cheese (or other melting cheese)
• Garlic butter
• 3.5 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3/8 t salt
• 1 T fresh parsley, finely chopped

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter & then mix in other garlic butter ingredients.

Cut the bread on a diagonal into 1 inch diamonds but do not cut all the way through the bread (just like you would cut a French stick for garlic bread).

Use your fingers or a knife to pry open each crack and drizzle in a t of butter & stuff in a pinch of cheese. You don't need to be super neat, it's nice to have some butter drizzled over the crust.

Wrap with foil & bake for 15 min. until cheese has mostly melted, then unwrap & bake for 5 more min. to make the bread nice & crusty.

Serve immediately.

To make ahead, after wrapping with foil, wrap with cling wrap as well. Then store in fridge overnight or freeze.

The denser the bread, the better the pieces will hold together when pulled off. Use already baked bread, not uncooked bread dough.

Speedy Tip: instead of melting butter, cream it. Then cut diagonal slices in one direction only. Use all the butter & spread generously in each crack on both walls. Then cut the bread diagonally in the other direction to make diamonds. As you drag the knife through the bread, it will spread the butter into the new crevices you are cutting. This doesn't provide quite the same coverage of butter, but for a speedy version it is a small compromise.