Dilly Bread

Growing up, this was a recipe that my mom would make only on St. Patrick's Day. It's not a particularly Irish recipe, but it has a similar consistency to Irish Soda Bread and it pairs perfectly with the rest of the meal we make on St. Patrick's Day. For the rest of the meal and some St. Patrick's Day traditions read this.

As best as I can tell, this recipe has its origins in the Amish community. In the 1960's this bread, or at least a very similar recipe, was the winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition. Its a no-knead bread with cottage cheese, rich dried onion and dill flavors. I love it on St. Patrick's Day, but it's also just a generally good recipe for an out of the ordinary bread recipe. 

Its pretty easy, and honestly the hard work is done by the mixer. You can mix by hand if you want to, but I recommend using a standing mixer, it all comes together pretty quickly.

Dilly Bread

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of yeast

1/4 cup of warm (not hot) water

1 cup of room temperature cottage cheese (it won't work if it's too cold)

1 tablespoon of butter or margarine (room temp butter is best)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1 tablespoon of minced dry onion

2 teaspoons of dill seed

1 egg

2-4 cups of flour

Dissolve the yeast into the 1/4 cup warm water. Add the yeast, salt, butter, cottage cheese, baking soda, egg, dry onion, and dill seed into your mixer. Then turn your mixer on a low speed and begin adding flour a little at a time. Let the mixer run for 5-10 minutes so everything is well mixed. Add flour until the dough is no longer sticky and can hold its own shape, too much flour will cause the dough to crumble and become flaky. Usually between 2-4 cups (generally around 3).

Grease or butter a baking pan. I like to use my round cake tins for a round loaf, but you can use a bread baker or just place the rounded dough loaf in the middle of a baking sheet.

Let rise for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. After the dough has nearly doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350F. Once the oven is preheated, put the bread into the oven for 30-45 minutes. Depending on your oven, you may want to cover your bread as it cooks for the first 20 minutes so that the bread cooks all the way through, then finish cooking it uncovered. 

Once you take your lovely golden brown loaf out of the oven, put butter and flaked salt on the top! And then cut and serve.