Now I know this isn’t exactly the most suitable recipe for any New Year dieters out there, but my excuse is I haven’t started mine yet. I’m still working my way from the excesses of choccies, biscuits, mince pies, christmas cakes, salami and cheese that are still lurking each and every which way I look. How could one possibly start any sort of diet and waste such bounty?. So today I decided to help myself along a little and throw all the cheese scrag ends into an oh so easy and oh soooooo naughty Cheese & Onion Loaf. Though I should hasten to add I still have a quarter of a Stilton and an equal amount of a mighty fine aged local Brebis (Sheeps Cheese). So I’m still a long LONG way of the D word. Thankfully. So my apologies now to any dieters out there, and I would seriously advice you not to make this, as just the one, ridiculously calorific, slice will not possibly be enough. You’ve been warned.
Master Jacques giving the Cheesy Bread his all!
Finally it seems I have my baking mojo back. After endless freezer-filling pre-christmas baking sessions it’s been the last thing on my mind the last couple of weeks. But today’s a Wednesday and that’s a baking day in our house. The kids aren’t at school and I always try to bake something or other with them each week. Today it was just Jacques and I, as Big Sis was out with Mr F collecting wood. So we made a gloriously quick and simple yeastless and kneadless throw-it-all together Cheese & Onion Bread, that was all made in the time it took to put together a simple Pumpkin Soup. This cheese fest bread is the perfect accompaniment to hearty up a lunch time soup and particularly wonderful served piping hot out of the oven whilst the cheeses are still oozy. And you can literally use any cheese, or combination of cheeses, you happen to have in. I really did use up all our scrag ends, throwing in chunks of goats cheese, Manchego and Comte.
Leftover Cheese & Onion Bread
Makes one large loaf
a tablespoon of sunflower oil
a large red onion, finely sliced
450g of plain flour
a level tablespoon of baking powder
a teaspoon of English mustard powder
a large pinch of salt
a large pinch of black pepper
75g of butter, melted
375ml of milk
250g of leftover cheeses, roughly cut into chunks
Special Equipment: a large loaf tin lined with baking parchment
Preheat your oven to 200ºC.
Heat the sunflower oil in a saucepan and add the onions. Gently saute for 10 minutes until softened. Set aside.
Meanwhile sieve together the flour, baking powder and mustard powder and stir in the salt and pepper, ensuring everything is thoroughly combined.
Melt the butter and stir into the milk, then stir them both into the dry mixture. Finally mix in the cheesy chunks and onions and dollop into a large lined loaf tin.
Place in your oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown on the top, firm to touch and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
Serve warm with soup. Perfect. Perfectly naughty anyway.
If you like this, you might also like to try these other super-easy to bake with kids recipes: Super-Fruity Banana Mini Muffins, Chocolate Pumpkin Cake, Cheese, Ham & Sweetcorn Muffins or Cheesy Biscuits
Chez Foti 
January 9th, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Funnily enough have just made soda bread with thyme and leftover cheese in it to go with leftover quiche for supper tonight! I just used goats cheese though – like the sound of your cheese mix. Looks yummy and very cute pic of Jacques stirring.
January 10th, 2013 at 10:40 am
Oh I fancy using up a little bit more of our gluttony of cheese in some soda bread! And obviously some foccacia too.
January 9th, 2013 at 9:31 pm
That bread looks divine!
January 10th, 2013 at 10:41 am
Thanks, it’s a total cheese fest and extremely naughty!.
January 9th, 2013 at 10:27 pm
I am so glad I am not on a diet at the moment so I can bake some of this and enjoy every mouthful!!! Looks delicious and a great way to use up old cheese…
January 10th, 2013 at 10:42 am
Thanks Vanesther, go for it!. Calorific non-diet heaven.
January 9th, 2013 at 11:26 pm
That looks so good!
January 10th, 2013 at 10:42 am
Thank you! Just have enough left to warm up for lunch today 🙂
January 10th, 2013 at 12:19 am
So glad I’m not the only person stumbling over Quality Street and tripping over crisps and crackers at every turn. With the house reduced by the departure of the duo of student daughters, there’s only so much food one can get through in a day!
January 10th, 2013 at 10:43 am
It’s quite a mission isn’t it? Obviously not an enjoyable one at all!
January 10th, 2013 at 3:57 am
Little Jacques looks so cute helping in the kitchen. I want to try this bread muffin style 🙂
January 10th, 2013 at 10:44 am
I nearly made the mixture into muffins actually, but then at the last minute decided on the loaf 🙂
January 10th, 2013 at 8:24 am
I love homemade bread of any kind and this looks scrumptious! Thanks for posting Louisa.
January 10th, 2013 at 10:45 am
This has to be about the easiest and quickest homemade bread there is, made in minutes and baked in 35.
January 10th, 2013 at 1:30 pm
It looks so good and it’s yeastless?? How does that work? Is it very dense? Sounds too easy to be true – just throw it all together! My kid of baking for sure. Bookmarked and ready to give this one a go for sure xxx
January 11th, 2013 at 2:29 pm
Oh it is so easy and so unsophisticated, Jacques really did do all the stirring! It’s more like a scone or muffin mixture and uses baking powder instead of yeast, but baked in a loaf tin has the appearance of bread. And understandably pretty dense as you say, but with that amount of cheese it’s going to be dense anyways 🙂
January 11th, 2013 at 11:06 am
Sounds, and looks, very good. I like the idea of adding mustard to the loaf. Off to the fridge to see how much leftover cheese I can find…
January 11th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
I nearly always use mustard when cooking with cheese as it enhances the flavour of cheese that little bit more, a trick my mum taught me!
January 11th, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Similar to Mom’s cheese and onion muffins. Very yummy. A favourite 🙂
January 11th, 2013 at 2:32 pm
Happy New Year to you by the way! Very similar to a muffin mix really, only in the shape of a loaf! A cheat’s bread :).
January 11th, 2013 at 8:55 pm
This looks right up my street and so easy to knock up too. Bookmarked. And a happy new year lovely.
January 13th, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Ah thanks Sian, happy new year to you too!
April 13th, 2013 at 3:32 pm
[…] @chezfoti.com […]
April 14th, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Thought I could leave the feedback here too:
The bread was really nice and easy to make and the red onions make it really tasty and the cheese was oozy and nice and warm and I added ham because I have so much ham (last week there was a sale for ham). We had it straight from the oven with some spicy chickpea soup. My children really enjoyed eating it, they wanted more in the morning. Your website has great, homely recipes, I browse often to see what I can make. Thanks so much for stopping by!!!
April 21st, 2013 at 6:20 am
Thanks for dropping by my blog! And I love the look of this recipe – currently trying to avoid cheese but I reckon there’s a couple of good substitutes I could throw in….
April 22nd, 2013 at 9:03 am
Oh please do try, and I’d be interested to know what substitutes you use?