On a visit to a deli and specialty food store in St.Ives, I found a beautifully packaged box of rose petals by Pariya. It is no secret that I love rose petals in cooking and am always looking for unique and creative ways to cook with them. With the weather being cold and not a single rose in bloom in my garden, I was thrilled to find this box of one of my favourite ingredients.
Browsing through the Flavour Thesaurus for some flavour matching ideas, I decided to make a French Almond bread peppered with finely chopped rose petals. I have been cooking and baking a lot from Serge Dansereau's French Kitchen cookbook and he has a fantastic no fuss recipe for an almond bread in it. I adapted that recipe and modified it to work with the rose element.
The bread was literally melt-in-the-mouth when it was warm from the oven. The aroma that filled the house was absolutely beautiful. The steam that rose from the loaf, as I sliced it up for photography was poetic. I baked it in a vintage milk bread pan that I was lucky enough to find in a thrift store. I loved the shape it gave the bread. I later baked a huge loaf of this bread for Australia's biggest morning tea which Nick took to work. This has to be one of the best breads I have ever eaten. It becomes firmer the next day but I would advise against toasting in a toaster, as it is a tad crumbly.
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recipe
Almond And Rose Bread - Amande Rose Pain
Preparation Time - 20 minutes
Baking Time - 45 minutes
Makes 1 Loaf
Ingredients
225g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
3 free range eggs, beaten
2 cups self raising flour, sifted
1 cup ground almond [almond meal]
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup dried rose petals, finely chopped
a pinch of salt
Method
Grease and line a 25 centimeter milk bread pan or loaf pan with baking paper. Pre heat oven to 170C.
Cream butter, sugar and salt in a bowl with an electric beater until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the flour, almond meal, lemon zest, rose petals and give it a whiz. Add the milk and mix till smooth and combined.
Pour batter in the prepared pan and bake for approximately 50 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely in the tin to avoid breaking it.
When the bread is cooled but still a tiny bit warm, remove from the pan and slice it. Serve with butter and poached fruits or a sprinkling of icing sugar and rose petals.
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After having had pinned this recipe over 2 years ago, I finally made it yesterday! It was simply divine. I didn't really change anything except: baked it in a 10 inch Bundt pan for 40-45 minutes at 335 degrees F, used granulated sugar in place of caster, and used 1.5 tablespoon of rose water (not extract) instead of rose flower petals (which I used for decoration only). I used whole milk in this recipe for extra richness and greased the Bundt pan with Pam's baking spray (cake inverted perfectly on platter and no excessive browning).
Following are the US measurements for this recipe:
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar (instead of 2/3 cup caster sugar)
2 cups all purpose flour + 3 tablespoons baking powder + 1/8 teaspoon salt (instead of self-rising flour)
1 cup blanched almond flour (such as Bob's Mill)
I also adore rose and tried my first ever recipe with rose petals last week, usually I use rose water. I made a chicken in rose petal sauce which tasted really delicious (if I say so myself) so I'm on the look-out for sweeter recipes so I can experiment further. I also adore ground almonds so I think I need look no further than this! Thank you!
Rose and almond... 2 of my favourite flavours! Really going to give that a go!
I haven't seen rose petals in a food store before, are they coated with anything or just simply dried roses?
Thanks
Wow, this looks delicious. I'll try to make it sometime in the next few weeks. I'm just wondering, could you substitute rosewater for the rose petals and if so how much would you recommend?
1 tablespoon would work I think because the rosewater flavour is so much more concentrated. You would need something to add texture since this bread is very soft and crumbly .. maybe crushed pistachios or 1/2 a cup of slivered almonds?
oh yes. yes yes yes to this. looks gorgeous and so dainty! this might need to be in my life very soon
absolutely lovely presentation, and the flavor combination is so delicate! i can't imagine anything gentler and more floral on the palate than rose and almond.
Hmm, the bread looks delicious. It looks a bit like a pound cake - the crumb looks so tender and delicious. And the flavor sounds really amazing.
And I love how you displayed the recipe - gorgeous!
wow this looks so good great recipe
Thanks Rebecca!
That little wisp of steam coming off of this lovely looking bread made my mouth water.
I can practically smell that fragrant bread all the way over here. Wow, rose petals and almonds. What a lovely combo that's so unexpected, too, in a bread.
I saw this before going to bed yest and had rosy dreams all night ..LOL.Jokes apart looks stunning! Love the first picture where you captured the steam from fresh baked.Once I had to bake a rose-raspberry cake & drove 25 miles alone for the organic, dyefree, edible petals..it didnt strike me to search online..Okay that vintage pan is making me J now..so I better leave.
Have a nice weekend.
lol, you are funny Tanvi! Thanks for the sweet words. I love the pan too. I found another one today and can now bake two and lay them on top of each other for a lovely shape.
Looks so so good, i am bookmarking this one.
I agree with Shirley, looks like a precious cake! Love the rose petal addition and your photography is gorgeous!
Sneh,this looks gorgeous! It looks almost like a cake... Love all your photos!
That vintage mold is gorgeous, as are all your pictures here. Just stunning!
Thanks so much Sylvie! 🙂
This looks so simple - I have a love hate relationship with bread at the moment. My first one was a disaster. But this sounds good, more like a "cakey" bread, which I love. And rose petals - that's cute!
Thanks Martyna! I seem to gravitate towards cake-y breads as well as opposed to yeast ones. Waiting for my copy of Zoe Francois' cookbook to fix that fear of mine 🙂