This Cheese and Garlic Crack Bread is EPIC! “Crack bread” is an appropriate name for this because it’s garlic bread – on crack…..
It’s basically a cheesy garlic bread, but so much more fun AND delicious! Cheese, garlic and bread – in pull apart bread form. You can’t go wrong. Guaranteed to be the most popular thing at any gathering you take it to!
Cheese and Garlic Crack Bread
This is garlic bread – on crack! Great to share with a crowd, or as a centre piece for dinner accompanied by a simple salad.
Servings 8
Ingredients
- 1 crusty loaf preferably sourdough or Vienna
- 1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese or other melting cheese
Garlic Butter
- 100 g / 1 stick 8 tbsp unsalted butter , softened
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
- Combine butter, garlic and salt in a heatproof bowl and melt in the microwave. Stir through parsley.
- Cut the bread on a diagonal into 2cm/1″ diamonds but do not cut all the way through the bread.
- Use your fingers or a knife to pry open each crack and drizzle in a teaspoon of butter and stuff in a pinch of cheese. This might sound like a bit of an effort, but I promise you it is worth it! You don’t need to be super neat, it’s nice to have some of the butter drizzled over the crust.
- Brush surface with remaining butter.
- Wrap with foil and bake for 20 minutes until the cheese has mostly melted, then unwrap and bake for 5 – 10 minutes more to make the bread nice and crusty.
- Serve immediately. (See note 1 for best make ahead methods)
Notes
1. Make Ahead – The best way to make ahead is to use softened butter instead of melted butter, mix with garlic, salt and parsley then smear into the cracks. Stuff with cheese, wrap and refrigerate or freeze. To cook, thaw then follow recipe instructions to bake.
To make ahead so that it just requires a brief 2 minute reheat in the microwave to serve, you must use a crusty sourdough loaf. Bake per recipe (including unwrapped stage), then wrap it up in foil and let it cool. Refrigerate up to 3 days, then to serve, just microwave for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes on high just to melt the cheese again. Because the crust gets so crusty in the oven, it stays crusty even when reheated in the microwave. 2. Bread type – The denser the bread, the better the pieces will hold together when pulled off. Sourdough works best!
Use already baked bread, not uncooked bread dough.
To make ahead so that it just requires a brief 2 minute reheat in the microwave to serve, you must use a crusty sourdough loaf. Bake per recipe (including unwrapped stage), then wrap it up in foil and let it cool. Refrigerate up to 3 days, then to serve, just microwave for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes on high just to melt the cheese again. Because the crust gets so crusty in the oven, it stays crusty even when reheated in the microwave. 2. Bread type – The denser the bread, the better the pieces will hold together when pulled off. Sourdough works best!
Use already baked bread, not uncooked bread dough.
