So I went in search of a pepperoni bread recipe. I clicked on *30* recipes, all used from a can bread or frozen bread dough. If you think I was mad a weeks ago with my recipe rant, you should have seen me after this one. lol I gave up and made this one up myself using one of the recipes I use for bread. I was hoping for a cheaper version, but this still makes for a lot cheaper than the fancy bread places!
4 to 4 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast (or 1 single use package yeast)
1 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/2 tsp garlic salt
2 large eggs
pepperoni
shredded cheese
Start off by mixing two of the cups of flour with the yeast into an oversized bowl. Next, you'll want to combine the water, sugar, garlic salt, and butter (or margarine if you prefer) into a small saucepan on medium low, and stir until the butter has completely melted and mixed with everything. Then you'll pour this mixture into the flour mixture and add the two eggs, and stir completely. Then start stirring in two more cups of the flour.
Lightly dust your counter with more of the flour, and put out the dough, kneading until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add some more flour to get to this stage if it's still sticking on your fingers. Once you are there, quickly wash out your bowl (or grab a clean one), and lightly "grease" it with a teaspoon of cooking oil, olive oil, or a non-stick spray. (I use olive oil myself) Add in your dough ball, and cover with a clean towel. You'll want to put it somewhere to rise for an hour - in a sunny window, by a fireplace, or even on top of the fridge works for most. During the summer months, I place my dough outside on the deck to rise - it goes faster because the sun is warm!
Now don't forget it! LOL If it has risen to at least twice it's size, you're ready for the next step. Bring it on in, and punch the dough softly, and let it sit for about ten minutes or so. While you're waiting, get out your baking sheets or pans, and lightly grease them so your bread won't stick.
Where you go next depends on your needs - are you a large family? You may want to make one large loaf. For a family of 2-4, this should make 2 medium sized loaves. I personally split the dough into two large balls at this point. Now, because I wanted to make this more of a "dipping" bread for soups, I choose to make the dough long so I could cut it like a biscotti. You may prefer your bread to be a regular loaf shape or a round shape - really, the choice is yours! The recipe works however you want it to.
After you've split the dough (or not) stretch the dough out so it's been semi flattened. Then you'll layer in pepperoni just along the middle of the bread, followed by cheese (don't go overboard!), and another layer of pepperoni. You want to be sure the cheese is covered by the pepperoni. Then fold over the dough so all of the pepperoni is covered with dough. If you are wanting to make it look like the biscotti, you can "braid" the dough, picking a corner from each side and pulling it across. For a loaf of bread, you'll want to fold the dough over, being sure that it's pinched along the side.
Place the now filled dough onto your baking sheet or in the bread pan, cover, and let rise for at least a half an hour. You might need to let it rise for an hour total, depending on where you've placed it and how warm it is.
Preheat your oven to 375. If you are using baking sheets, I would suggest baking one loaf at a time to even the baking out - this way the heat is focused on the one shelf in your oven. You'll want to bake it for 15 minutes, a little longer if you are baking one giant loaf.
Remove from the oven and let it cool on a wire baking rack:
Slice and serve:
We inhaled the first two loaves. LOL It's yummy warm out of the oven, but if you ask me it's even better the following day - well, if you can wait that long! ;) You can add as much pepperoni and cheese if you'd like, I just used a little in the photos above.
