The other night I just wanted to try something different. I know I can always whip up an artisan bread loaf but I wanted to try a more savory type of bread and decided to make this one. I will admit I made it twice because the first time something just did not seem right and I’ll explain why in my lessons learned. The second time, with the adjustments I made, I nailed it!

I love this bread for a variety of reasons. It is not designed to be a sandwich bread that’s for sure. This bread is a great accompaniment to almost any dinner you serve and it is fabulous reheated. So let’s talk savory scallion and cheese bread and I’ll share what I learned making it…

Lesson Learned 1 – Be very picky about the olive oil you use: The first time I made this bread with off-the-shelf Bertoli extra virgin olive oil. Big mistake! Now I’ve got nothing against Bertoli’s olive oil and I use it on a regular basis for my basic cooking needs. But the olive oil used here is designed to help enhance the flavor of the bread and so a basic cooking olive oil does little for that. As a matter of fact I felt it gave an unusual, almost borderline bitter flavor to the bread.

The second time I used garlic infused olive oil that a I got from a specialty shop – what a difference! This oil enhanced the bread and made a big difference in the flavor. So make sure you are using a good flavorful olive oil when making this bread.

Pepper Jack Cheese Cubes

Lesson Learned 2 – Choose good melting cheese: The first time I made this I used gruyere. I like gruyere but I didn’t think it did much for the bread. The second time I made the bread I used emmenthaler cheese. Now what’s emmenthaler you ask. Same here, I had no idea what emmenthaler was before I made this bread. Emmenthaler is actually swiss cheese. It is savory but not overpowering and it melts divinely. It is quite often used in fondues.

I actually used a combination of cheeses – I used shredded emmenthaler and cubed pepper jack. The pepper jack and cayenne pepper give the bread a nice but not overpowering bite. So those are the cheeses I recommend when making this recipe.

Emmenthaler Cheese

Lesson Learned 3 – Learn how to adapt: The recipe I adapted this from called for 1/3 cup of whole milk. I did not have any whole milk in the house but I had heavy cream and 2% milk. I filled the measuring cup three quarters of the way up with heavy cream and then filled the rest in with the 2% milk. I loved the way it turned out and I think the heavy cream did a lot to enhance the flavor of the bread.

You could also use chives or other herbs to enhance the flavor of the bread. I had scallions in the refrigerator so I chose to use them and that added great depth of flavor!

Lesson Learned 4 – This bread is divine reheated: When I was getting ready to make dinner the other night I cut a few pieces of the bread and put them in aluminum foil. I set my toaster oven to 350 and put the bread in for 20 minutes. It was fabulous!

I don’t often make savory breads so I’m very pleased with how this one turned out. The only changes I would recommend when making this at sea level is to increase the amount of baking powder from 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon and to perhaps shorten the cooking time by about five minutes or so.  Other than that, everything else remains the same. Enjoy this one!