While I don’t eat it often, it’s hard to overstate the appeal of garlic cheese bread. Cheese bread alone is great, but it gets infinitely more delicious when adding a bit (or a lot) of garlic flavor.
In this case, the garlic flavor comes from both fresh and dry. They both offer something a little different, so I really recommend using both. However, you can technically use one and not the other. You’ll need to compensate for the missing garlic factor though, so keep that in mind.
For cheese, you can use just about anything that melts. I don’t recommend American – it’s a bit too strong – but any cheddar would be great. Whatever you use, you’ll want full (or close to full) coverage of the bread so it doesn’t burn.
The amount of cheese used depends on the person. For each bread half, I used four pieces of “sliced” supermarket cheese, spread out with no layering, which was almost perfect. You can use shredded cheese as well, or something you cut off a larger block.
If you like this recipe for garlic cheese bread, check out my recipe for margherita crostini.
Ingredients
1 large French baguette
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted*, 229 grams
1-2 tsps garlic powder**, 4-8 grams
4-6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp kosher salt, 6 grams
Cheese, as needed
Preparation
Slice the baguette*** in half, then set aside.
Add the butter, salt and both garlics to a sauce pan. Heat over medium until the butter is melted, then add everything to the baguette halves.
Top with cheese, then broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
Notes
* You can also soften the butter, then mix everything in before spreading onto the bread. I feel melting gets a more consistent flavor, but it’s a bit more tedious. I also worry about softened butter melting off the bread, rather than into it.
If you really want, you could do the melting step, chill the butter until softened, and then add it to the bread. That sounds like a pain though, and isn’t something I recommend. If you do try it, let me know if it’s somehow worth it.
** The exact amount depends on how much garlic flavor you want. Same goes for the garlic cloves. The minimum amount is pretty reserved, so you’ll probably want more if you’re a garlic lover.
*** You’ll want to take extra care here. If the bread gets cut weird or breaks, you’ll have weird-looking cheese bread at best. You may want to cut the bread in half straight down to make it shorter and more manageable before doing the rest.
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