Sourdough Musings: Whole wheat bread with extra sharp cheddar cheese and garlic

I'm going to be trying something a little different in the kitchen today. I've been wanting to try adding some cheese and/or garlic to the dough and see how it comes out. I originally envisioned using Gorgonzola or a strong blue cheese to compliment the full whole wheat flavor of this bread but the store was out of Gorgonzola so I went with the extra sharp cheddar.

The starter I plan to use for it comes from King Arthur flour. This stuff is really hyper active when fed on a regular basis. I've had it out on my counter for the last two days and I've been feeding it twice a day. The last feeding was this morning and it was starting to froth out the top of the container I had it in by the time I got around to starting the recipe. The beauty of todays loaves is that I have no idea how much cheese or garlic to add to each loaf so I'm just going to wing it.. I bought a 8 oz block of cheese to use so I'll cube that up and divide that up among the 3 loaves I plan to make. The garlic I added to the dough during the initial mixing. I used about 5 teaspoons. YMMV , add what you're comfortable with. Me, I really like garlic. The cheese I'm going to add just prior to the final rise when I roll out the dough and ball it up into the final shape. That way I know that most of the cheese will be distributed evenly through the dough. The final rise will be a retarded rise, taking place in the refrigerator over night. I have discovered that a slow final rise really adds a twang to the bread. From what I've read recently, the cold rise allows the enzymes more time to do their little conversion work. Before baking I take the bread out of the refrigerator, slash it while it's cold and let it come up to room temp. This has the added benefit of making it easier to slash and the final warming allows the dough to expand more opening up the cuts made.

Todays bread is going to see a few other changes in technique that I've been wanting to try also. I plan to make 3 small boules and use parchment paper on top of the cooking stone that I bake with. I'm either going to wind up with 3 wonderful loaves of bread or this is going to be a complete disaster. I don't see any middle ground on this one. Here's hoping for the best.
Well the loaves are baked and didn't turn out too bad. I haven't cut into one yet but they look nice. When I took them out of the refrigerator this morning I realized that I had a small problem, how to transfer them from the dinner plates they were resting on to the baking stone. I don't own a peel. I wound up using another dinner plate over the top and just inverted them. That allowed me to get them on the stone but it did have the effect of deflating them somewhat and wiped out the score marks I had on them. Live and learn. I did get a decent amount of oven spring so that helped. Next time I think I'm going to try and proof them in a basket of some sort.
Another thing I discovered on this bake is that parchment paper is wonderful stuff. I did not have any sticking problems at all and laid it directly on the cooking tile, it may even be reusable.