This is a bread loaf that, true to its name, is quick to make because there’s no yeast, no kneading, no rising. It’s a Cheese, Herb and Garlic Quick Bread with swirls of herbs and ribbons of melted cheese. Excellent for afternoon tea or dipping into soups!
A terrific no yeast bread recipe
This is one of those recipes that isn’t actually a bread in the traditional sense, it’s a muffin batter baked in a loaf pan. So it doesn’t have that chew you get with proper yeast bread, but it’s irresistible in its own right, with a soft fluffy crumb loaded with garlicky, herby goodness and cheesy ribbons running through every slice.
But the best part is possibly that you’re already eating it while all those yeast-bread-making-people are still waiting for their dough to rise! 😈
I first shared this in 2015, but over time I tweaked it – mainly because the original recipe called for buttermilk which is not a fridge staple for me, and also to make the crumb softer and last longer. I’ve been enjoying this better version for a while… time to fess up and share!
Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make this:
Flavourings – cheese, herb and garlic
The cheese is cut into strips to bury in the batter, while the herbs, garlic and oil are used to make a “pesto” like mixture that is dolloped and swirled throughout. (PS Yes, you can totally use homemade or store-bought pesto!)
Cheese – I like to use cheddar, colby or tasty cheese (a type of cheddar popular here in Australia). However, you can use any melting cheese you want though I don’t recommend using mozzarella (flavour and salt too mild) or hard cheeses like parmesan, pecorino (too salty).
Fresh herbs – I love the combination of rosemary for earthy, herby flavour (and also because I have abundant supplies from the garden) and parsley for fresh green flavour. Rosemary is quite strong and for this loaf, I feel like using more than 2 tablespoons is too much.
Feel free to experiment with combinations you like! I originally used equal amounts of dill, thyme, rosemary and parsley, because I had remnants of these at the time.
Dried herbs – The ever reliable, always-on-hand combination of thyme and oregano! I used to just use fresh herbs but grew to prefer using both fresh and dried herbs in this particular loaf, for a mix of fresh and earthy herb flavour.
Garlic – Fresh, crushed with a garlic crusher or grated, so the flavour infuses better into the oil than finely chopping with a knife.
Olive oil – To bring the herb and garlic mixture together.
Salt – Brings out the flavours of the herbs.
Batter
The ingredients of this no yeast bread are similar to a muffin, but I altered the recipe to make it less crumbly, making it suitable to slice and even to toast. Here’s what you need.
Yogurt – A bakers’ trick to make crumbs moist and stay fresher for longer (this stays fresh in the pantry for 5 days!). Use any plain, unsweetened yogurt – regular or Greek – preferably full fat. Low fat does work but the crumb is a bit less plush.
Milk – Regular cow milk, full fat recommended though low fat can be used. (The yogurt plus milk essentially replaces the buttermilk that was in the original recipe).
Flour – plain / all purpose flour.
Baking soda / bi-carbonate – The leavening agent that makes this loaf rise. It’s stronger than baking power and makes this loaf rise better with a softer crumb. However, if you’re out, you can substitute with 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder.
Eggs – Make sure you use large eggs which are 50-55g / 2oz each in the shell, sold in cartons labelled “large eggs”. If you only have jumbo or XL eggs, see this post for how to measure out the correct amount.
Butter and oil – The fat in this loaf. I use a combination because butter adds better flavour than oil, but oil makes the crumb of the loaf more moist, and keeps it fresher for longer.
Garlic – With garlic in both the herb garlic mix AND in the batter, there’s unmissable garlic flavour here!
Salt – Brings out the flavour in everything.
How to make Cheese and Garlic Quick Bread
I like to wedge chunks of cheese in the batter and swirl through herb and garlic oil so you get lovely pockets of cheese and streaks of herby colour, and the lovely textured crust on top. But you could just mix the herb mixture and shredded cheese through the batter – even faster to prepare!!
Herb garlic mixture – Just put everything into a bowl and mix together. It should be dollop-able, so if it’s a little on the dry side just add a smidge more oil.
💡TIP: Instead of finely chopping the herbs with a knife, you can blitz it up with a stick blender. It makes it a bit finer and pesto-like so it is not quite as green once baked, but it works perfectly and is faster to make! Directions in recipe card notes.
Dry ingredients – Whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Wet ingredients – Whisk the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
Combine wet and dry – Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour the wet ingredients in and mix just until you can no longer see any flour. The batter will look a little lumpy and that’s totally fine. Don’t keep mixing to try to make it smooth – the lumps bake out and overmixing makes your loaf crumb less soft.
Cheese, herb and garlic – I like to do the herb and garlic swirls and cheese ribbons in 3 layers, using a 21 x 11 x 7 cm pan (8.3 x 4.5 x 2.75″) which makes a nice tall loaf.
Spread 1/3 of the batter in the loaf tin. Dollop 1/3 of the herb garlic mixture over and randomly push in and drag the knife through – there are no rules or art about this. You could just spread the mixture across the surface. Then wedge the cheese slices in, upright, like pictured above, sticking out is fine.
Then repeat this twice more. It’s fine for the cheese to be sticking out the top – makes the surface golden and cheese crusted!
Bake 30 minutes uncovered at 180°C/350°F (both fan-forced and standard ovens).
If you’re wondering why the temperature is the same for both types of ovens, because you’re used to seeing the fan oven temp 20°C lower – good question! Please see FAQ – too lengthy to explain there. 🙂
Bake covered 20 minutes – Remove from the oven and loosely cover with foil. Then bake for a further 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Cool 5 minutes in the loaf tin then at least 10 minutes on a rack before slicing (it’s very fragile when hot, straight out of the oven).
Butter isn’t needed.
But it’s always welcome.
Serve this for afternoon tea, take it to picnics, as a side for meals. It’s also fantastic for dipping into soups and slow cooked stews!
– Nagi x
PS It’s terrific eaten at room temperature but if you can get to it within the first couple of hours after taking it out of the oven and you do the pretend-optional-butter-slather, it may well be the best thing you eat all week.
FAQ
The original recipe published in 2015 included buttermilk. Over the years, as I’ve made this recipe for myself, I found myself tweaking it out of necessity because buttermilk is not a fridge staple for me.
Instead, I used a combination of yogurt and milk which are both fridge staples. Eventually, these became standard inclusions in loaf recipes like this, both sweet and savoury. Not just because of convenience because I always have the ingredients, but also because it makes a better loaf. The crumb comes out more soft and not only that, the loaf stays fresher for longer – 4 to 5 days, compared to 2 to 3 days with the buttermilk version.
I’m afraid I haven’t tried this with gluten-free flour. Sorry!
4 days in the pantry, then for day 5 and beyond, just lightly toast it to freshen it up.
Truthfully though, if I’m not enjoying this warm, freshly made, I pretty much always toast it!
The original recipe I published in 2015 was a recipe I already had that I had been making for myself over the years. Mind you, back then, I was only 1 year into this website so I still had plenty of recipes in my stash to dig into. These days, most recipes are brand new creations. 🙂
So, the original recipe didn’t require development. This new and improved version is one that evolved over the years as I was making this recipe for myself and I was tweaking it. Once I realise it had been a few years that I’d been keeping the improved version for myself, I realised it was time to share! 🙂
As this one was an existing recipe of mine, JB wasn’t involved in the development process. However, as with every recipe we publish, he made it independently to double check the recipe. Happy to report he enjoyed it!
Usually, the temperature for fan-forced ovens is 20°C lower than standard ovens. So, most of my recipes say to pre-heat ovens to 180°C for regular ovens or 160°C for fan-forced ovens. This is because the effect of the fan is that the heat in the oven is stronger and bakes things faster.
The best way to explain this is if you are wet on a cold day, you feel colder when the wind blows. Fans in ovens work the same – it makes things cook faster.
With this loaf though, perhaps because of the height and most of the cooking of the inside of the loaf is done when it is covered in foil, I found that it takes way longer at 160°C fan-forced than a 180°C standard oven. But when I increased the fan oven up to 180°C, it baked at the same time. This happens with some recipes, from time to time. 🙂 An anomaly, but it’s not unheard of!
Instead of chopping the fresh herbs with a knife, you can just blitz everything up with a stick blender. The herbs are chopped finer so the swirls/dollops are not quite as green once baked, but it works perfectly and is certainly faster!
To do this, put everything in a jug that is just big enough to fit the head of a stick blender. You’ll need 1/2 cup lightly packed parsley and 1/4 cup rosemary leaves. Don’t put garlic in whole, takes more effort to blitz than herbs so you’ll end up over blitzing the herbs into a green smoothie, so put it in grated or crushed with garlic press.
Then blitz until the herbs are finely chopped, but stop before you turn it into a green smoothie. You might need an extra tablespoon of oil to loosen the mixture up.
Watch how to make it
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Cheese, Garlic and Herb Quick Bread (no yeast)
Ingredients
- 7 oz / 200g block of cheese (cheddar or tasty), cut into 3mm / 0.1" thick slices, different widths for random ribbons throughout! (Note 1)
Herb and garlic swirl
- 2 tbsp fresh rosemary , finely chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley leaves , finely chopped
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 garlic cloves , crushed using garlic press or finely grated
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt (halve for fine table salt)
Dry Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 1 tsp baking soda (bi-carbonate soda), sub 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt (halve for table salt)
Wet Ingredients
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt , Greek or regular (full fat, unsweetened)
- 3/4 cup milk , full fat best, low fat ok
- 2 large eggs (~50-55g/2oz each)
- 3 1/2 tbsp (50g) unsalted butter , melted
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 small garlic cloves , crushed with garlic crusher or grated
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (both fan and standard ovens).
- Loaf tin – Grease a 21 x 11 x 7 cm loaf pan (8.3 x 4.5 x 2.75") lightly with butter or oil spray then line with baking paper (parchment paper). (Note 3)
- Herb and garlic swirl – Mix the ingredients in a small bowl, it should be a thick dollop-able mixture.
- Dry ingredients – Whisk the Dry Ingredients in a bowl.
- Wet ingredients – Whisk the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
- Combine – Make a well in the centre of the Dry Ingredients. Pour the Wet Ingredients in and mix until just combined.
- Swirls and cheese Layer 1 – Pour 1/3 of the batter into the bread tin. Dollop 1/3 of the herbs across the top then use a knife to "swirl" it into the batter up and down, and also turning the batter over (refer photo below). Use 1/3 of the cheese slices and push them randomly into the batter. Push some all the way in and leave some poking out of the batter.
- Layers 2 and 3 – Repeat twice more. Don't worry about herb mixture exposed and cheese slices sticking out the surface, looks amazing when baked!
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden. Remove from oven and cover with foil, then bake for a further 20 minutes (total baking time 50 minutes). Check to make sure the centre is cooked by inserting a skewer – it should come out clean.
- Cool in the loaf tin for 5 minutes then turn the bread out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool for at least another 10 minutes before cutting thick slices. Butter is optional but always welcome!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
More quick loaf breads like this
Life of Dozer
Very large dog under a wobbly tripod with a very expensive camera. What could go wrong??😅
This was early today, in the shoot room. Filming and photographing a sparkling new recipe for next week! Dozer doesn’t realise yet that it’s vegetarian. 😂
I cannot comment as I have not made it.
Reason: Metric version, please.
Updating now 🙂 Thanks for picking that up Ken! N x
Should there be garlic in the herb and garlic swirl? It’s not listed in the ingredients
YIKES! That would be helpful, to add GARLIC in a herb and GARLIC swirl! 🤪 Thanks for picking that up Charli – N x
For the note about buttermilk substitute, is it supposed to be 1 cup milk plus 3 Tbsp lemon plus 1 Tbsp vinegar?
Not sure what recipe your referring to, this one does not say anything about a sub using buttermilk…
She was referring to the old recipe which had buttermilk in it! 🙂 N x
So delicious! A cross between a bread and a pudding in a way. I used dry herbs, other wise followed the recipe exactly. A food scale helps with measuring the cheese. It was a good accompaniment to a chicken soup dinner. Soup, salad and a terrific bread!
I’m very short too and I knead standing on a short stool or box – game changer. Also do this if doing a lot of slicing/dicing/cutting!
Wow, I’ll have to try this Clair, Im quite small too 😄
I think I might try adding Vegemite in place of the herbs 🙂
Trippled the recipe and baked it in a small loaf tin and larger round cake tin and it turned out great! The garlic flavour was very subtle so will add extra on top (just my preference)
It was very forgiving even though I Overmixed AND did not put it in the oven straight away
Fantastic recipe.
Wow ! I made this bread last night with a roast, grilled asparagus and mashed potatoes- and it was incredible !! I’m actually so blown away and surprised. I did not have any fresh herbs on hand so I used some dried oregano, and a 7oz wedge of Asiago and Parmesan. We ate it with some oil and herbs for dipping and it was fantastic. No yeast, no problem- who knew !
Made exactly to the recipe and turned out perfect, great side dish for soup. Thanks once again for another brilliant recipe.
This looks wonderful! I was thinking of adding some chopped bacon. If I do, would you suggest reducing the amount of herbs?
I usually get a baguette and some nice cheese on soup night, but made this instead with what I had on hand. I used jalapeño jack cheese, and not quite as much as the recipe called for as it’s all I had, and used fresh parley and oregano from my patio. Looking forward to next weeks soup night already, so I can make this again!
Another great recipe! Realised too late I didn’t have enough milk to turn into buttermilk, but had left over yoghurt sauce with garlic, lemon and dill. Used that with 1/4 cup of greek yoghurt (all I had left!)
Then used dried rosemary and colby cheese. We ate it still warm with home made vegetable soup. So, so good together! This morning toasted a slice to eat with my egg for breakfast. Also a great pairing. Will definitely make again. Since I started making your Artisan bread, 18 months ago. I haven’t bought bread from the shop
Haha, Nagi I hear you. At 5ft im also vertically challenged and avoid recipes where I have to knead long so this was perfect for me and very easy to follow. Recommend to other shorties (or anyone else for that matter) to go for it!
what can I use instead of eggs…I’m allergic
This has become a fave homemade bread in this house. My Partner loves it and so do friends. Thank you so much!!!!
Hi Nagi, I used to make a delicious cheese & gherkin bread similar to this but have lost the recipe. Any idea how many gherkins to cheese I could add please?xoHelen.
I just made this load of bread and it was simply amazing. I can’t wait to make it again for tomorrow when friends will be over for dinner. Thank you so much for sharing all your great recipes! Cheers****
Nagi, Is it correct that there is no butter or oil in the actual dough?
It’s s the oil in the herbs, and the buttermilk, I guess makes it moist enough. It’s so good.
Plain flour…. Is it all purpose or self rising?
Hi Natalie – plain flour is the same as all-purpose. If it calls for self-rising (self-raising) then I will say that in the recipe. N x
This was delicious and the recipe worked perfectly!