I saw a video about this and thought it would make a great activity to do with my 10 year old nephew. It was!
The video went fast, and we ended up doing everything wrong (although it came out awesome), so I looked up another recipe and used it in the directions below – https://www.popsugar.com/food/Giant-Grilled-Cheese-Sandwich-42548789 so you could see the proper way to make the bread. I used the ingredients in the video because that’s the way we made it.
You will need:
(2) packets of active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salt
6 1/2 cups flour (we used bread flour)
3 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening or melted butter
a little extra flour for kneading dough
2 square cake pans
20 slices of cheese (or a lot of your own homemade cheese, shredded)
2 sticks of melted butter
Directions:
Into a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add yeast and water. Let sit for 5 minutes, or until the yeast has activated and started to bubble. Add sugar, salt, butter, and half of the flour and mix well, until incorporated. Add remaining flour 1 cup at a time until all incorporated. (We just threw everything into a bowl and stirred it up. That included unmelted vegetable shortening.)
Continue mixing the dough until smooth and elastic. Turn the dough out onto a floured cutting board and continue to knead for 5 minutes.
Grease a large clean bowl with nonstick cooking spray and place the dough in the bowl, turning it once so the dough is coated. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rise for 1 1/2 hours, or until it has doubled in size. (Ours didn’t quite double, but we proceeded to the next step anyway.)
Grease a square baking pan and uncover dough. Punch the dough to deflate it and then place it on a lightly floured surface. Stretch the dough to fit roughly in the size of the baking pan and then place the dough inside, carefully stretching it as much as possible to fill the pan.
Cover with a damp towel and allow to rise a second time for 30 to 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375ºF and uncover dough. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown and hard on the outside. Remove the loaf from the pan and let cool.
Once the bread has cooled, very carefully slice off the top and bottom of the bread and then slice horizontally one more time to create 2 even slices of bread. (We only sliced off the top and used the other side inside the sandwich. Note: I wielded the big bread knife to slice off the top of the bread and I think that’s a job best left to the adult!)
Butter a griddle and place over medium-high heat. Toast both slices of bread on one side. Then onto a quarter sheet tray place one piece of bread, toasted side down. (We buttered the bread, made the sandwich and grilled it on a cookie sheet on top of the stove.)
Top with cheese and then cover with the second slice of bread, toasted side up. (I didn’t want to use my homemade cheese in case this didn’t work!)
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven, carefully slice, and serve warm. (We baked it for about 20 minutes at 375F because we wanted the cheese to be melted all the way through.)
Break off a little piece and yum!
