Last week I was browsing the online version of the Los Angeles Times Food Section, and I noticed a recipe for Cherry, Honey and Fennel Bread (even though the recipe is from a couple of years ago, it was being featured last week for some reason). I'm always looking for new and interesting quick breads, so I decided to give it a shot.
Making this bread is a bit of a pricey proposition. First, there's the pound of cherries (currently $4.99/lb. at my neighborhood Whole Foods). Then, there's the half cup of pine nuts (about 2.5 ounces, currently $22.99/lb. at Whole Foods or $29.99/lb. at Wegmans). As I started assembling the ingredients for this recipe, I was struck that this bread has a very health-food-store vibe: whole grain flour, brown sugar, honey, fennel, pine nuts, cherries, no oil, and very little butter. The entire time the bread was baking (mine took 80 minutes), I joked with Tom that it was "Hippie Bread."
The bread looked great when it came out of the oven, and even better when it was sliced to reveal it was chock full of cherries. However, the bread was an odd shade of orange, basically the color of pumpkin bread.
The taste was just terrible. I had used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, hoping that the texture would not be too heavy, but the texture was overly dense and rubbery. The fennel flavor was overpowering and completely drowned out the sweet cherries. And even though I happen to really like fennel, I got no enjoyment from eating bread that tasted of nothing else. This bread could have easily passed for some vegan health loaf that you might pick up at the Berkeley Bowl (or, as Tom put it, something that might have been available at the Whole Earth Restaurant that used to grace the campus of UC Santa Cruz).
I couldn't even bear to take my loaf to the office. I will be happy to never see this damn hippie bread again.
Recipe: "Cherry, Honey and Fennel Bread," from the June 25, 2008 Los Angeles Times.
Making this bread is a bit of a pricey proposition. First, there's the pound of cherries (currently $4.99/lb. at my neighborhood Whole Foods). Then, there's the half cup of pine nuts (about 2.5 ounces, currently $22.99/lb. at Whole Foods or $29.99/lb. at Wegmans). As I started assembling the ingredients for this recipe, I was struck that this bread has a very health-food-store vibe: whole grain flour, brown sugar, honey, fennel, pine nuts, cherries, no oil, and very little butter. The entire time the bread was baking (mine took 80 minutes), I joked with Tom that it was "Hippie Bread."
The bread looked great when it came out of the oven, and even better when it was sliced to reveal it was chock full of cherries. However, the bread was an odd shade of orange, basically the color of pumpkin bread.The taste was just terrible. I had used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, hoping that the texture would not be too heavy, but the texture was overly dense and rubbery. The fennel flavor was overpowering and completely drowned out the sweet cherries. And even though I happen to really like fennel, I got no enjoyment from eating bread that tasted of nothing else. This bread could have easily passed for some vegan health loaf that you might pick up at the Berkeley Bowl (or, as Tom put it, something that might have been available at the Whole Earth Restaurant that used to grace the campus of UC Santa Cruz).
I couldn't even bear to take my loaf to the office. I will be happy to never see this damn hippie bread again.
Recipe: "Cherry, Honey and Fennel Bread," from the June 25, 2008 Los Angeles Times.
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