MAISON DE KENNEDY

Cheese & Bacon Top Loaf

❤️❤️❤️❤️🤍 (4/5) Tested by Cass — 2.5 hrs · Makes 2 loaves (~12 slices)

The savoury cousin of the cream doughnut — shaped free-form as a fat oval about two inches tall, then sliced across into thick pieces at the bakery counter. Soft fluffy white bread spread with tomato relish, showered with bacon, onion and a heavy blanket of sharp cheddar, baked until the top is bubbling and gold and the bread underneath has caught the bacon fat. Not a pizza. Not a focaccia. A very specific Kiwi thing that every bakery in the country used to make.

Ingredients

Dough

• 500 g Strong Bread Flour — or high-grade
• 30 g Caster Sugar
• 8 g Fine Salt
• 7 g Instant Dried Yeast — 1 sachet
• 300 ml Full-Cream Milk — warm, ~35°C
• 1 Egg — room temperature
• 40 g Unsalted Butter — soft
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil — for the bowl

Topping

• 150 g Tomato Relish or Chutney — Wattie's, Barker's, or homemade
• 200 g Streaky Bacon — diced small, ~5 mm
• 1 medium Brown Onion — finely diced
• 300 g Extra-Sharp Cheddar — grated (or 200 g cheddar + 100 g low-moisture mozzarella)
• 1 tsp Dried Oregano — optional
• Cracked Black Pepper
• Pinch Smoked Paprika — optional, for colour

Method

1. Dry mix: In a stand mixer with dough hook — flour, sugar, salt, yeast. Keep salt and yeast on opposite sides of the bowl until combined.
2. Mix the dough: Add warm milk and egg. Low speed until shaggy (~2 min), then medium for 5 min until smooth.
3. Butter in: Add soft butter a tablespoon at a time with the mixer running. Knead a further 5–6 min until glossy and pulling cleanly off the bowl. Slightly tacky is right; sticky-wet is not.
4. First rise: Round into a ball, place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover. Warm spot for 1–1½ hours until doubled.
5. Par-cook the bacon: While the dough rises — dry pan over medium, cook the diced bacon 3–4 min until just rendering and taking colour. Not fully crisp; it finishes in the oven. Drain on paper towel, reserve 1 tsp of the fat.
6. Soften the onion: Same pan with the reserved fat, medium-low, 4–5 min until soft and translucent but not browned. Season lightly and cool.
7. Prep cheese: Grate the cheese. Combine bacon and onion in one bowl; keep cheese separate.
8. Divide: Tip dough onto a lightly floured bench. Knock back gently and divide into 2 equal pieces (~500 g each).
9. Shape: Flatten each into a rough rectangle, fold the long edges to the middle, roll up tightly from a short end to build tension, pinch the seam closed. Seam-side down, cup your hands around it to form a fat oval about 25 × 12 cm. The surface should be taut — that skin tension stops it flattening during proof.
10. Flatten the tops: Transfer to a parchment-lined tray, well spaced. With oiled fingertips press each top flat to ~2–2.5 cm thick — you want a flat surface for the topping, not a domed loaf.
11. Second rise: Cover loosely with oiled cling film or a tea towel. Prove 30–40 min until visibly puffy and springy. Don't over-prove — an over-risen loaf collapses under the weight of the topping.
12. Preheat: 200°C / 400°F (or 180°C fan). Rack in the middle.
13. Relish layer: Spoon relish over each proved loaf and spread thin and even with the back of a spoon, stopping ~1 cm short of the edges. Glide, don't press — you'll deflate the dough.
14. Bacon and onion: Scatter the mix evenly over the relish, half per loaf.
15. Cheese blanket: Cover with the full amount of grated cheese in a thick even layer, half per loaf. Not a sprinkle — it should completely hide what's beneath and run right to the edges of the relish so it forms a bubbly crust wall.
16. Finish: Pinch of oregano, good crack of pepper, whisper of smoked paprika if using.
17. Bake: 20–24 min until the cheese is bubbling, golden and darkening at the peaks, and the exposed bread edges are deep gold. If browning too fast at 15 min, tent loosely with foil.
18. Cool and slice: Slide the parchment onto a rack, cool 10 min. Slice across the oval into thick 3–4 cm pieces with a serrated knife — the classic bakery cut. Best warm.

Notes

• Try smaller loaves if you want individual servings — though it does detract from the flavours.
• Relish, not sauce. The layer under the cheese has to be a thick, chunky, sweet-tart relish — not tomato paste, not pizza sauce, not ketchup. Wattie's Tomato Relish or Barker's Tomato & Red Onion Chutney is the signature flavour. No access? Thicken passata with brown sugar, malt vinegar and diced onion cooked down till jammy.
• US cheese translation. NZ "tasty cheese" is a sharp aged cheddar, far more assertive than US mild cheddar despite looking similar. Reach for Tillamook Extra Sharp, Cabot Seriously Sharp, or Kerrygold Aged. A 2:1 blend of extra-sharp cheddar to low-moisture mozzarella gives the flavour and the stretchy bubbly bakery look. Avoid mild cheddar, Colby-Jack and American — too greasy, not enough flavour.
• Why milk not water. The bakery version has a slightly enriched crumb — soft, tender, sandwich-bread-adjacent, not lean crusty bread. Milk plus a little butter and sugar is the sweet spot. Water gives you baguette texture, which is wrong here.
• Why par-cook bacon and onion. Raw bacon in a 200°C oven for 22 min releases a river of fat that greases the crust and leaves the bacon flabby. Raw onion comes out sharp and wet. A quick pre-cook fixes both.
• Free-form or pan? Traditional is free-form oval, held together by dough strength alone. If your dough feels too slack, or you want neat edges for square slices, bake in a well-oiled 23 × 33 cm roasting dish instead — press out to fill, prove, top and bake the same way.
• Reheat like the bakery: 5 min at 180°C revives it perfectly. Microwave makes the bread rubbery — avoid.
• Freezer slices: cut into portions, freeze in a single layer, then bag. Reheat from frozen at 180°C for 10–12 min.
• Serving: traditionally an afternoon snack still warm, or split cold in a lunchbox the next day. Also excellent alongside pumpkin soup. Butter on a warm square is not necessary but not wrong.

Variations

• Overnight dough — first rise in the fridge overnight. Shape and prove in the morning. Better flavour, easier timing.
• Extra-loaded — pockets of cream cheese dolloped through the relish before the bacon layer.
• Onion & cheese only — skip the bacon, double the onion and caramelise it properly (20 min). Excellent vegetarian version.
• Spicy — swap the tomato relish for smoky chipotle chutney, or add sliced pickled jalapeños under the cheese.
• Sourdough riff — sub 100 g of the flour for active starter and drop the yeast to 3 g. Longer prove, excellent depth.
• Apricot & Camembert — the cheeseboard-in-bread version, and completely untested so far. Same dough. Swap the relish for apricot chutney (or apricot jam loosened with 1 tsp Dijon, 1 tsp white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt). Skip the bacon. Layer: apricot → diced raw green pepper (~½ cup, keep the crunch) → softened onion → a thin grated mozzarella base → sliced camembert rounds, rind on, ~200 g per loaf, overlapping to cover. Drop the oven to 190°C / 375°F and bake 20–24 min. Optional: crumble crisped prosciutto over the top after baking.

↑ Back to top