Cheddar Baked Chicken

I thought I needed to post more main dishes.  I never realized how many desserts we make/enjoy till I saw my lop-sided blog.  I love desserts and bread!  Hum?  Problem...probably. :)  With that said, we made wonderful crispy chicken last night for dinner.  I think the sauce sets the chicken off.  The baked cheddar chicken tastes well on its own but the sauce...oh my...so good.  You have to try this sauce with your chicken.  In fact, my kids told me I should make this sauce for our baked potatoes.  It is wonderful. :)

Cheddar Baked Chicken
4 large chicken breasts
3 cups whole wheat bran *
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 cup milk
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Sauce:
1 can cream of chicken OR cream mushroom ** ( see below my homemade cream soup)
2 Tbs sour cream
2 Tbs. butter

Step one:
Cut chicken breast into large chunks.  Put milk, shredded cheese, and whole wheat bran* into separate bowls.  Dip each piece of chicken into the milk; then, the cheese; then the bran crumbs.  Spray your stainless steel casserole pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken inside the pan.

Step two:
Cover the pan with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for 10 more minutes or until golden brown.

Step Three:
In sauce pan, combine the cream soup**, sour cream and butter with whisk.  Stir over medium heat until sauce is hot.  Spoon over baked chicken.

*Due to our high dessert menu, we sift a lot of whole wheat flour with the L'Equip Flour Sifter that fits so nicely on the Bosch Universal Mixer.  The Bosch flour sifter allows you to still have fresh whole wheat flour and removes the bran leaving you with a light, cake flour type flour to bake our pastries.   We freeze the bran and add the wheat bran to our pancake, muffin, bread recipes later.  I keep the wheat bran in my freezer.  In making a crunchy chicken topping, the bran tasted nice and gave a nice crunchy texture to the chicken.  Just one more way to use your whole wheat bran in your baking!

**Cream Sauce
I use this base instead of buying creamed soups. When a recipe calls for cream of celery, cream of mushroom or cream of chicken, I simply make this cream base and add a seasoning. In this case, I used chicken broth powder to give the flavor.

1 stick butter
1/2 cup whole white wheat flour
2 cups milk

Melt butter. Whisk flour into butter. Add milk and stir till thickened. Add flavoring.