My quest for Chez Guillaume potato cheddar bread

In life, I often need to set myself goals to get something done and not procrastinate. This can take different forms, but in the kitchen it often ends with: "I want to eat THIS". But it's not accessible, because I'm not in the right country, or confinement prevents me from going to the store, or I like it so much that I want to be able to do it any time.

Perhaps one day I'll tell you in detail about my various quests, the first of which was croissants. But today, I'm going to tell you about my culinary quest for containment.

It's not very original, because it involves making bread! And when you see supermarkets being robbed of their flour, I know I'm not the only one.

I've made bread before, but I've never been very convinced of the results. And now living in Quebec, I've always thought that the difficulty of finding fresh baker's yeast would prevent me from making good homemade bread.

I also own the excellent book by Éric Kayser: La Larousse du pain. A real bible for making bread. I recommend it if, like me, you want to start making your own bread. But until now, I'd never used it, because again I thought it would be too complicated.

But everything changed with this confinement and the video of RicardoThis is the first time I've seen a video showing how to make good bread very easily and, above all, very quickly. When I saw the video, I said to myself that it couldn't possibly be that easy. So I gave it a try. And I have to say, it's reconciled me with homemade bread.

But on the strength of this experience, I wanted to go further, and my quest was clear: to reproduce the cheddar potato bread of the boulangerie Guillaume in Montreal. It's literally my favorite bread. At the beginning of my quest, the bakery made deliveries, but not to my home.

They don't necessarily make the best baguette in Montreal, but they have a selection of original and varied breads that are just too good. When I lived next door, I went there every week and always tried new breads, and I was never disappointed (except once with a rosemary or lavender bread, but they don't do that anymore). My top 3: Pain patates et cheddar, pain figues fromage, Brioche champignon au chocolat blanc.

I wanted to eat this delicious potato and cheddar bread, but couldn't afford to buy any... So I set out on my quest to make my own!

So I went back to basics and experimented with several bread recipes. I read up on the subject. But my quest isn't over yet, because I still haven't managed to reach the level of Guillaume's bread...

So I invite you to follow this blog if you'd like to follow me on my quest. And if you have a good potato and cheddar bread recipe I can try, please let me know!

In the meantime, if you just want to find out how to make homemade bread with different levels of difficulty and investment, I'm preparing a guide on the subject to be released shortly. Stay tuned.

Back to the stove, I've got a quest to finish!