Cheddar Mielie Bread with Sun-Dried Tomatoes #BreadBakers

Celebrate the bounty of summer with sweet corn and sun-dried tomatoes in a cheddar loaf with a hit of spicy chilies. This rich bread is fabulous toasted until crunchy, bringing out its extra cheesiness. 

You’ve heard me wax lyrical about summer cherries when we were living in France and how they are my favorite treat when in the States each summer, but I’ve been holding out on you about my love affair with sweet corn, the cobs of early summer, their tender pale yellow kernels bursting with milk and sugar, cooked ever so briefly and delicious just as is. They don't even need butter or salt. I could eat my not inconsiderable weight in those as well.

As I searched online for inspiration for this month’s BreadBakers challenge to use summer’s bounty in bread, I was looking for something that would celebrate my love of sweet corn. But I didn’t want cornbread. I wanted corn bread, that is to say, bread with corn, if you know what I mean. It was quite a challenge to make The Google separate the two.

Corn. Maize. Maíz. Jagung. Maïs. Milho. These I knew from living in various countries but mielie, pronounced mealy, was new to me. (Even better: Suikermielies which means sweet corn, or literally, sugar corn.). I kept coming across recipes for mielie bread or mealy bread, both of which intrigued me. The first because I was unfamiliar with the Afrikaans word for corn and the second because my immediate thought was, Who the heck wants to bake mealy bread? It didn’t sound like a nice thing. Mealy is not a desirable quality. It also put me in mind of mealy bugs. Shudder. Turns out that mielie bread and mealy bread are one and the same and there is no actual mealiness or bugs involved. Some have cornmeal as well as corn, others are quick bread with corn kernels. Exactly what I was looking for!

My lovely cheesy loaf was adapted from this recipe on Simply Delicious Food.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1/3 cup or 75g butter, melted and cooled
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk
 1 large fresh corn on the cob
1 small can (8 .5 oz or 241g) cream style sweet corn
8 oz or 227g cheddar cheese, grated
1 oz or 30g sun-dried tomatoes (store bought or make your own!) http://www.foodlustpeoplelove.com/2014/05/sun-dried-tomatoes-how-to.html
2 hot red chili peppers

Method
Boil your corn on the cob for about 3-5 minutes in lightly salted water. Drain and rinse with cool water. Leave until cool enough to handle and then slice the golden kernels off the cob with a sharp knife.

I cut the cob in two to make it easier to hold.

Meanwhile, pour some boiling water over your sun-dried tomatoes and leave them to rehydrate.

Once plumped, drain the water and squeeze any excess out. If you are using tomatoes packed in oil, dry them off thoroughly between some paper towels.

Chop the tomatoes roughly with a sharp knife and mince your red chilies.

Divide your grated cheddar into two relatively even piles and add a small handful of the chopped tomatoes to one of them. Mix thoroughly.

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease a standard size loaf pan.

Meanwhile, sift all of your dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and then add the fresh corn kernels and the tomato-less pile of cheddar to the bowl and mix well to make sure all the kernels are coated with flour. This will help ensure they stay suspended in the bread batter, rather than sinking to the bottom.

In another mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, butter, buttermilk and creamed corn. Add in the minced chilies and the chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Whisk again.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold until just combined.

Pour the thick batter into your greased loaf pan.

Cover the top of the batter with the cheddar/sun-dried tomato mixture and place the pan in your preheated oven.

Bake for 55-65 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out clean. If the loaf is browning too fast, cover the top with aluminum foil.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool down for 10 minutes before removing the loaf from the bread pan.

Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing to serve.

Enjoy!

Have you ever baked bread with corn that wasn’t cornbread? What’s your favorite summer fruit or vegetable? Here to encourage you to bake some bread with the bounty of summer is our talented host Pavani of Cook's Hideout and the rest of my Bread Bakers group.

• Almond and Carrot Biscuits from Basic N Delicious
• Cheddar Mielie Bread with Sun-Dried Tomatoes from Food Lust People Love
• Cherry Bread Pudding from Bakers and Best
• Eggless Rosemary Garlic Dinner Rolls from Spill the Spices
• Garden Herb Focaccia from My Catholic Kitchen
• Herb and Cheese Biscuits from Gayathri's Cook Spot
• Herb and Cheese Grissini from A Shaggy Dough Story
• Herbed Butterflaps from Sneha's Recipe
• Herbs, Spinach and Cheese Bourekas from Cooking Club
• Jalapeño Summer Squash Quick Bread from Magnolia Days
• Mango Kolache from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Peach & Blueberry Meringue Pull Apart Bread from Passion Kneaded
• Peach Pull-Apart Bread from Recipes, Food and Cooking
• Peaches and Cream Bread from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Pizza Cipolla - Onion Pizza from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Rosemary and Garlic Fougasse from Spice Roots
• Rosemary Breadsticks from A Baker's House
• Spinach Semolina Bread from The Schizo Chef
• Studded Zucchini Yeast Bread from What Smells So Good?
• Sundried Tomato Focaccia with Sauteed Summer Veggies & Garden Salad from Sizzling Tastebuds
• Tomato, Onion, Parmesan Focaccia from Noshing With The Nolands
• Walnut Oat Crumble Courgette Bread from Baking in Pyjamas
• Wholewheat Onion, Spinach & Red Pepper Bread from Hostess At Heart
• Wholewheat Zucchini Bread from Cook's Hideout
• Zucchini Oatmeal Bread from Cali's Cuisine
• Zucchini/Jalapeño/Cheese Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme.

Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send me an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

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Cherry Lemon Jam

Cherry lemon jam is made with juicy summer cherries and fresh lemon, cooked down with lemon zest and sugar. It's the perfect jammy marriage of sweet and sharp, as delicious on a piece of buttered toast as spooned over cold vanilla ice cream or stirred into a pot of natural yogurt.

One of my pet peeves is waste. That’s not to say that I don’t throw out my share of things in the refrigerator that somehow manage to work their way to the back, get forgotten, and grow legs on occasion, but it makes me sad when that happens. Especially when it’s something I really love to eat.

Here in Dubai, where temperatures rarely fall below an average low winter temperature of 57°F or 14°C, growing cherries, which require a chill time of 700-800 hours in order to flower and produce fruit, is just not an option. So all of the cherries that appear in our supermarkets are flown in at great expense from countries that enjoy near or freezing temperatures in winter.

As you might guess, those costs are passed on to consumers and cherries are crazy expensive to buy here. So one of my favorite summer rituals is buying and eating my not inconsiderable weight in cherries when I am in the States on holiday.

As I packed up to head back to Dubai this summer – and if you follow me on Instagram you know I mean that quite literally – I still had a big bowl of cherries on the kitchen counter. There was just no way I could leave those behind! So I got out the cherry pitter and went to work. Jamming is so much more satisfying than packing suitcases!

Jam making is really easy, with the right tools.
A digital scale and a thermometer are going to simplify the process. One of the secrets to easy fruit jam, that is jam that sets, is to add something acidic, like lemons which have natural pectin, and to cook the fruit with an appropriate amount of sugar until it reaches a temperature of 220°F or 105°C.

Since the amount of sugar depends on the weight of your cooked fruit, I’d like to suggest you buy a digital kitchen scale. < Amazon affiliate link to the one I use, but, honestly, any scale which can toggle between metric and imperial measures will do, giving you the freedom to use recipes from all over the world. (You can measure by volume but weighing is a lot less messy.)

If you don’t have one, may I suggest you get a thermometer as well? < Once again, that's an affiliate link to mine - costs about $14 and I use it ALL THE TIME. A thermometer takes the stress and worry of “will it set?” completely out of the jam making equation. Reaching the proper temperature hasn't failed me yet.

Ingredients
A bunch of cherries (mine weighed 2 lbs 5 oz or 1050g unpitted, with stems, 2 lbs 1 1/2 oz or 950g without pits and stems)
2 small lemons (about one per pound or half kilo of other fruit)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
Sugar - an amount equivalent to 3/4 the weight of your cooked cherries and lemons and their juice – this batch was 2 lbs 2 1/2 oz or 978g – so I used 3 1/2 cups or 734g sugar

Method
Sterilize your jars and lids and put them at the ready, metal teaspoon in each, canning funnel perched in one, before you begin. Sterilize your ladle as well. The amounts given above made two pint jars and one half pint.

Pit your cherries and put them in a large non-reactive pot. (If you have a scale, go ahead and weigh the empty pot first and make a note of the weight for later.) Grate in the zest of your two lemons.

Cut the peels and pith (the white stuff) off of your lemons with a sharp knife. Remove all the seeds and chop the flesh into small chunks.

Scrape the chopped lemons and any juice on the cutting board, into the cherry pot.

Add the extra two tablespoons of lemon juice into the pot.

Cook the pitted cherries and lemons, covered, over a medium flame for about 15 or 20 minutes, until they have released some juice and the cherries have softened.

Use a potato masher to mash them lightly, leaving some cherries whole.

Measure your cooked fruit, juices and all, by volume or weight and then do a little math. Add 3/4 that amount of sugar, along with the salt.

My calculation looked like this:
Pot weighs 1300g empty.
With cooked cherries and lemon, it weighs 2278g.  2278-1300 = 978g.
Weight of cooked fruit and juice = 978g x .75 = 734g or about 3 1/2 cups sugar to add

Cook the fruit, sugar and salt over a medium to high heat, uncovered, till the mixture starts to thicken. Stir frequently and set your thermometer in the pot. Cook quickly until the temperature reaches setting point for jam: 220°F or 105°C.

Quickly ladle the hot, sweet jam into your prepared jars and screw the lids on as tightly as you can manage.

Turn the jars upside down and leave to cool. The scalding cooked fruit further sterilizes the jars and as the jam cools, a suction forms and the lids are firmly sealed. The little circles on the lids should pop in and keep the jam safe for consumption for many months. If any of the seals don’t create a sufficient vacuum and the circles don’t pop in, store those jars in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

This week I am delighted to be hosting Sunday Supper with my friend and fellow blogger, Heather from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks. It’s our goal to encourage everyone to Save Summer Harvest with a number of methods, and in keeping with the mission of Sunday Supper, to enjoy the bounty of summer around your family table for months to come.

Canning

• Blackberry Chia Seed Jam from Books -n- Cooks
• Cherry Lemon Jam from Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate Blackberry Preserves from The Redhead Baker
• Gilded Bluebarb Jam from What Smells So Good?
• Hamburger Dill Chips from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Piri Piri Hot Sauce from Curious Cuisiniere
• Southwestern Salsa from The Freshman Cook
• Spiced Peach Jam from Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Spiced Vanilla Rhubarb Jam from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Strawberry Balsamic Syrup from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Watermelon Butter from Palatable Pastime

Dehydrating

• Blueberry Peach Fruit Roll-Ups from Cupcakes & Kale Chips
• Dried Pineapple from Take A Bite Out of Boca

Fermentation

• Fermented Spicy Daikon Spears + A Cocktail from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Simple Pickled Cabbage from Simply Healthy Family

Freezing

• How to Freeze Blueberries from Pies and Plots
• Peach Crisp from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Roast Tomato Soup with Basil-Butter Croutons from Caroline's Cooking
• Summer Veggies from Momma's Meals

Infusing

• Raspberry Vinegar from Magnolia Days

Pickling

• Black Radish Pickles from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
• Bread & Butter Pickles from Adventures in All Things Food
• Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles from Life Tastes Good
• Mustard Pickles from Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Pickled Cherries with Five Spices from Nosh My Way

Preserving in oil or butter

• Garden Herb Butter from An Appealing Plan
• Spinach and Pistachio Pesto from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen

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Saving Summer Harvest

Farmer’s markets, overproducing gardens, neighbors who surreptitiously leave zucchini on your front porch, herb beds out of control! If you are so blessed, how do you deal with a bounteous summer harvest? Come this Sunday, #SundaySupper is here to help!

On Sunday I am cohosting Sunday Supper with my friend and fellow blogger, Heather from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks because the theme is one we are rather fond of, Saving Summer Harvest. If you’ve been reading along for at least a year, you might recall that I cohosted the same event last summer. And if you've been around even longer, you'll remember that Heather hosted it in 2013 when I shared my spicy sweet tomato chutney recipe (photo above) and she made Mixed Berry Rhubarb Jam! If you are scared of preserving your own produce, or think it is just too hard, this is the Sunday Supper for you!

Heather's Spring Conserve with strawberries, rhubarb, pineapple, raisins, and nuts from 2014

While I was growing up, my grandmothers and all of their contemporaries canned and froze and made preserves all summer long, usually fruit or vegetables from their own gardens. I’ll be honest, it looked like a lot of hard work (because it was!) so I avoided it for many years, until it occurred to me that I could do small batches, what my friend Kelli of Kelli’s Kitchen calls nano-canning. Well, I didn’t have a name for it back then, but two or three or five jars instead of 20 seemed do-able. Another turning point for me was learning how to vacuum seal my jars without actually using the hot water bath. I know this technique has its naysayers but for anything with a high sugar content and/or some acid like lemon juice or vinegar, it works just fine. Especially since, if you are making it on a small scale, it will get eaten relatively quickly.

How do you Save Summer Harvest?
There are myriad ways of preserving produce: salting (think capers and anchovies), smoking (red peppers ground into paprika), infusing (chili oils or fruit vinegars) not to mention canning (which could include sugar, salt and vinegar, all of which are great preservatives), dehydrating (for herbs and fruit), freezing (for most anything!) and the ever popular pickling, whether by fermentation or the addition of an acidic liquid like lemon juice or vinegar. And let’s not forget straight fermentation without which we would have no blue cheese or Camembert, wine or beer!  Last but not least, some ingredients can be preserved by enclosing or covering them in fat, for instance, potted shrimp, duck confit, compound butters, pestos and roasted peppers.

And while I’m sure that list seems long, I’ve left a few out, some which are ancient, like burying ingredients, for instance century eggs which are enclosed in mud which causes them to ferment rather than spoil, or more modern techniques like vacuum packing.

Waste not, want not
The one goal all these methods have in common is to make the best use of what we can grow or buy when it’s in season and make it edible into the next, so we don’t have to waste anything. And that’s what we are going to help you do on Sunday.

Please check back then when the links to these great Saving Summer Harvest recipes will go live and I’ll be sharing my own cherry lemon jam.

Canning

• Blackberry Chia Seed Jam from Books n' Cooks
• Cherry Lemon Jam from Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate Blackberry Preserves from The Redhead Baker
• Gilded Bluebarb Jam from What Smells So Good?
• Hamburger Dill Chips from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Homemade Spiced Peach Jam from Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Pickled Black Radish from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
• Piri Piri Hot Sauce from Curious Cuisiniere
• Rhubarb Vanilla Jam from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Southwestern Salsa from The Freshman Cook
• Strawberry Balsamic Syrup from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Watermelon Butter from Palatable Pastime

Dehydrating

• Blueberry Peach Fruit Roll-Ups from Cupcakes & Kale Chips
• Dried Pineapple from Take A Bite Out of Boca

Fermentation

• Fermented Spicy Daikon Spears + A Cocktail from Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Freezing

• How to Freeze Blueberries from Pies and Plots
• Peach Crisp from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Roast Tomato Soup with Basil-Butter Croutons from Caroline's Cooking
• Summer Veggies from Momma's Meals

Infusing

• Raspberry Vinegar from Magnolia Days

Pickling

• Bread & Butter Pickles from Adventures in All Things Food
• Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles from Life Tastes Good
• Mustard Pickles from Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Pickled Cherries with Five Spices from Nosh My Way
• Simple Pickled Red Cabbage from Simply Healthy Family

Preserving in oil or butter

• Herb Butter from An Appealing Plan
• Spinach and Pistachio Pesto from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen

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