The metamorphosis of the 2 gourmands? wine bread

Once upon a blog I saw an appealing Pain au vin épicé et pistaches (Spiced wine and pistachio bread) and I jumped and started making some.

The original can be seen on the blog of Les deux gourmands. It looked like a great good old time bread… to eat with cheese.

What I got is delicious, but very far from that. I neglected two of the main ingredients : patience and time taken to make it.

Yep, mine is not so pretty : a hole in square bread… raised less than it should. I’ve let Kiki (the home-bakery) make it. It was supposed to make it during the night.

And I had less wine. I have drunk a good cup of the hot spiced wine. Yummy… but that was the end of the last bottle of red. So, there is less wine.

And I was tipsy so I forgot to switch on the machine at night…. oops. Started it the next morning.

No pistacchio… as the machine smashes them, if you use the program while you sleep. As I put fruits in my hot wine, I put some here. Some home-made candied orange peel.

It is a nicely flavored cake-like bread.

It’s great on its own. Or with simply butter on it, but you can add more peel for the photo.

It goes well with Earl Grey Ceylon tea. My camellia fell down at the end of the shooting. Can you see the relation between the camellia and my snack ?

It is the flower of Japanese Winter, I steal some in the streets. They are everywhere. It’s a specialty. Any idea why ?

I’ll make that bread again, with the quick orange version. And I want to try the patient pistacchio one too. En tout cas, Claire et Michel, merci pour cette recette.