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Caramelized onion sourdough bread with Jarlsberg, deeply scored with a raised ear, resting on a checked linen towel

Caramelized Onion Sourdough Bread with Jarlsberg

Caramelized onion sourdough folded with nutty Jarlsberg, made with sifted heritage wheat and emmer or with bread flour and spelt.
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Prep Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Fermenting & proofing 20 hours
Total Time 21 hours 50 minutes
Servings: 2 loaves
Course: Bread, Side Dish
Cuisine: Nordic, Scandinavian
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Browned onions (make first — they must be cold)
  • 3 large yellow onions about 720 g / 1.6 lb, thinly sliced
  • 3 tbsp neutral oil enough to coat the pan
Dough
  • 140 g active sourdough starter about ⅔ cup — bubbly, doubled and at its peak
  • 400 g water about 1⅔ cups, lukewarm
  • 350 g sifted landhvete flour about 3 cups — or bread flour
  • 250 g sifted emmer flour about 2 cups — or sifted spelt
  • 15 g fine sea salt about 2½ tsp
Folded in
  • 240 g Jarlsberg about 1¾ cups, cut in ¼ in / ½ cm dice
  • the cooled browned onions roughly 230 g / 1 cup once reduced
For the baskets
  • 25 g rice flour for dusting the linen cloths; it doesn't absorb, so the loaves release cleanly

Equipment

  • Digital kitchen scale This dough runs on weight, not volume — 67% hydration leaves no room for guessing.
  • Heavy skillet or cast iron pan You need a wide, heavy base to brown 1.6 lb of onion without steaming it.
  • 2 Banneton proofing baskets, 8 in Hold the shape through the cold retard and leave the spiral pattern. Dust with rice flour. If you only have one, proof the second loaf in a cloth-lined bowl.
  • 2 Linen proofing cloths Hold the shape through the cold retard and leave the spiral pattern. Dust with rice flour. If you only have one, proof the second loaf in a cloth-lined bowl.
  • Bench scraper Essential here. A dough loaded with cheese and onion sticks, and hands alone will tear it.
  • Bread lame One deep, confident cut. A loaf this heavy needs a sharp blade — diced cheese near the surface will drag a dull one.
  • Perforated baking tray Both loaves bake on one hot tray — the holes let heat reach the base under all that cheese. Preheat it with the oven.
  • Metal roasting tray Sits on the rack below and takes the water for steam. Never glass — it will shatter.
  • Instant-read thermometer With this much cheese and onion, color can fool you. 205–210°F (96–99°C) in the center means it's baked through.
  • Wire cooling rack This loaf needs a full cool before slicing or the melted cheese smears.

Method
 

  1. Brown the onions (day before, or the morning you mix)
  2. Slice and start. Slice the onions thin and add them to a heavy skillet with the oil over medium-low heat. No salt here — the dough and the cheese bring plenty.
  3. Brown slowly. Cook 45–60 minutes, stirring every few minutes. They will release water, collapse, then slowly turn deep amber and jammy. Don't rush this with high heat — you want sweet and soft, not scorched and bitter. 720 g raw cooks down to roughly 230 g.
  4. Cool completely. Spread them on a plate and refrigerate if needed. Warm onions will slacken the dough and throw off your fermentation — this matters more than it sounds.
Day 1 — mix and ferment
  1. Feed your starter the morning you bake so it's lively when you mix — it should have roughly doubled and look domed and bubbly.
  2. Mix the dough. Whisk the starter into the lukewarm water to loosen it, then add both flours and mix by hand until no dry flour remains. Hold the salt back. Cover and rest 1 hour.
  3. Add the salt. Sprinkle it over and squeeze and fold it through until fully worked in. The dough tightens slightly.
  4. Stretch and fold — every 30 minutes, 4 sets. Wet hand, grab one side, stretch up, fold over the center, quarter turn, repeat around. Over these 2 hours the dough goes from shaggy to smooth and elastic. Our Stretch & Fold Timer keeps track of the sets.
  5. Fold in the onions and cheese on the last set. Spread the dough out, scatter the cold onions and the 240 g of diced Jarlsberg across it, then fold it up and over itself until they're evenly distributed. Work gently — the gluten is already built and you don't want to tear it.
  6. Bulk ferment until risen 30–50%. Roughly 4–6 hours total from mixing, depending on your kitchen. The dough should look domed and jiggly with bubbles along the sides. Watch the dough, not the clock; our guide to bulk fermentation shows what to look for.
  7. Divide in two. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into two equal pieces, about 810 g each. Round each one loosely into a ball.
  8. Bench rest 20–30 minutes, uncovered. Don't skip this — the dough needs to relax before final shaping or it will fight you and tear.
  9. Shape each piece into a taut round, pulling it toward you against the counter a few times to build surface tension. With this much cheese and onion, a bench scraper does most of the work — see how to shape sourdough for the technique.
  10. Into the bannetons, seam-side up, in linen cloths dusted generously with rice flour.
  11. Cold retard 12–16 hours in the fridge. The cold firms the dough so it scores cleanly and springs high, and it deepens the flavor.
Day 2 — bake
  1. Preheat hard. 45–60 minutes ahead, put the perforated baking tray on the middle rack and the metal roasting tray on the rack below, and heat the oven to 480°F (250°C).
  2. Score the cold loaves. Turn them out, dust off the excess flour and make one confident deep cut down the length of each with the lame. See how to score sourdough for angle and depth.
  3. Bake with steam, 20 minutes. Slide both loaves onto the hot tray, pour a cup of boiling water into the roasting tray below and close the door fast.
  4. Drop to 400°F (200°C), remove the steam tray, and bake 15 minutes more until the crust is deep brown and the cheese at the surface has caramelized. The loaves are done at 205–210°F (96–99°C) in the center.
  5. Cool completely on a wire rack — at least 2 hours. Slicing warm drags the melted cheese through the crumb.

Notes

Chef's tip — cold onions, added late. Two things decide whether this loaf works. The onions go in cold, because warm onions soften the gluten and push fermentation unevenly. And the inclusions go in on the last fold, not the first — nearly 500 g of onion and cheese against 600 g of flour will tear a gluten network that hasn't been built yet. Build the dough first, then load it.
  • About the flours. Landhvete and emmer are both heritage wheats — sifted, so not quite whole grain. Outside Scandinavia, bread flour stands in for the landhvete, and sifted spelt for the emmer. Emmer flour is worth seeking out from a specialty mill if you can; it brings a mild sweetness that plain wheat doesn't.
  • Cheese swap. Any firm melting cheese works at the same 240 g — options are in the post below. Cut it in ¼-inch dice; shreds melt out and disappear into the crumb.