Ingredients
5 cloves garlic, grated with a microplane grinder or in a blender cup
8 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (18-20 inch) baguette, sliced in half horizontally
1 1/2 cups shredded Italian cheese blend (While low-fat and fat-free cheese will work, I feel like it doesn’t melt as well.)  

Instructions
1. Adjust the oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Cook garlic, 1 tablespoon butter, and water in small nonstick skillet over low heat, stirring occasionally, until straw coloured. About 7 to 10 minutes.

2. Mix hot garlic, remaining butter, salt and pepper in bowl and spread on cut sides of bread. Sandwich bread back together and wrap loaf in foil. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

3. Carefully unwrap bread and place halves, buttered sides up, on baking sheet. Bake until just beginning to colour, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set oven to broil.

4. Sprinkle bread with cheese. Broil until cheese has melted and bread is crisp, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer bread to cutting board with cheese side facing down. Cut into pieces and serve.  

Note: If, like me, you manage to melt all the butter in step 2, just place it in a sealed container in the fridge and shake or stir it up every 5-10 minutes while it resolidifies.  Once it’s the consistency of softened butter again, proceed with the rest of the recipe.  



Comments
This is a recipe from Cook’s Country.  Sadly I got a bit distracted trying to get dinner together and the edges of the bread got a bit more charred than was ideal.  Make sure to keep an eye on things when you are broiling!  The taste was good but I found it to be a bit oily.  I’m not entirely sure what I can do to fix that other than to use less butter, so I think I’ll try that next time.