People of a certain age will have fond memories of Casserole Dilly bread, a round loaf of bread redolent with dill and tender with cottage cheese. My mother says it was the only bread she ever successfully made. And it is such a good, simple bread. And at the time this was in fashion, cottage cheese was pretty much used for dilly bread or served as a “diet” food with canned fruit. But man has cottage cheese had a renaissance. I mean people put it in EVERYTHING now. And I am not totally onboard with some of those options. But I haven’t seen much about dilly bread so I thought I’d put it back out there. I’ve updated it a bit using some fresh dill along with the dried dill weed (some versions use dill seed, I prefer it this way) and leaving out dehydrated onion so that dill flavor shines through. And I am in no way trying to tout this as past of the “healthy” extra protein etc. trend that cottage cheese is caught up in. I assume it has some more protein, but that is hardly the point, in part because this is best slathered with butter.
I prefer to use whole cottage cheese, as in not low or no fat, but it will work. The full fat gives such tenderness and bounce. Some people blend the cottage cheese smooth, but I like the little pops of curd. As I mentioned above, I prefer dried dill weed. And you need the concentrated flavor of dried, but a little grassiness from fresh dill is a great touch. This is such an easy bread to put together – no kneading or need for a mixer. The dough should be stiff and relatively dry so add extra flour as needed. The double rise makes an airy crumb that is really delightful.
Ingredients
1 cup whole cottage cheese
¼ cup water
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1 envelope (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1 Tabalespoon dried dill weed
1 Tablespoon fresh dill, the feathery fronds, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, at room temperature
2 – 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
Directions
- Stir together the cottage cheese, water, sugar and butter in a small saucepan and heat over low until the butter is melted and the mixture is just warm, around 110 – 114 degrees. Remove from the heat, stir, then sprinkle over the yeast and stir one turn. Leave for the yeast to proof for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is foamy. It may look a little curdled.
- Transfer the cottage cheese mixture to a mixing bowl and add the dill weed, fresh dill, salt and baking soda and stir to combine. Add the egg and stir to combine. Add 2 cups of flour and stir until you have a thick, stiff, pretty dry dough. Add more flour as needed. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Stir down the dough and turn it into a well buttered 8-inch round deep baking dish. Cover loosely and let it rise in the warm place for 30 – 40 minutes, until doubled again.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the bread for 35 – 40 minutes, until it sounds hollow when tapped. The internal temperature should be around 200 degrees.
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