Superbowl recipe: "blooming onion" bread

Historically, I haven't taken much notice of the Superbowl. And while I do enjoy watching them game more now than I used to (read: I kind of understand what's happening), my favorite part of this new ritual is making some kind of unapologetically gauche and decadent food to share with friends and family. 

Last year. I made these baked jalapeño poppers, which were quite popular with Ryan's parents. This year, I'm considering my options. How do you top jalapeños wrapped in crescent roll? You consult Pinterest of course. 

...That's where I came across this little gem of an idea: "blooming onion" bread. 

The concept is that you take everyone's favorite part of a blooming onion: the way people pulls off tasty morsels of food from a communal golden bloom, but you replace the whole onion part with cheesy bread. What could be better than that?

I basically followed this recipe, but I used pepper jack cheese instead of plain Monterey Jack. I also skipped the green onions, used less butter, and sprinkled the poppy seeds on after drizzling the butter (rather than mixing them into it). Since I was out of foil, I baked the whole thing, unwrapped, for about 25 minutes, which worked just fine for me. 

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