This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is right up my alley — bread, cheese, olives, tapenade, I mean, what’s not to like about that? This recipe is Dorie’s take on a quick bread recipe from the Comté cheese company.
Dorie’s version combines flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, cheese, tapenade, olives, lemon zest, and olive oil. Everything is quickly mixed together, scraped into a pan, and baked for about 45 minutes. The house smelled heavenly while the loaves were in the oven! I doubled the recipe, and we had one loaf with dinner right after it baked. I’m taking the other one to a friend’s house this evening as part of a cheese plate.
We really liked this bread. It’s salty, cheesy, savory, and really rich. I cut back the salt called for in the recipe by just a bit, as I was worried that the cheese, olives, and tapenade would throw it over the top salt-wise. It came out fine, not too salty for my tastes. But I think it would have been OK without any additional salt, too.
My only complaint about the recipe was the amount of olive oil. It was more than 3/4 cup for the two loaves! And combined with the eggs, cheese, and oil-cured olives, it seemed a little on the oily side for me. I think you could cut the olive oil way back, and maybe even eliminate it entirely. I made a note in my book to use less oil next time.
This post participates in French Fridays with Dorie, a group cooking its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table one delicious recipe at a time. To see what other participants thought of this recipe, click here.
Of Cabbages & King Cakes 
Alice said,
June 17, 2013 at 12:52 pm
I actually didnt add all the olive oil and it turned out fine 🙂
trevorsisboom said,
June 16, 2013 at 12:34 pm
I”m generally not afraid of salt in these types of things since they just inspire me to drink more wine. I think it matters what type of salt you use. I used kosher… but if you used table salt it would be much saltier I think. Didn’t seem to oily to me and I rounded up to 7TBS.
gaaarp said,
June 16, 2013 at 7:56 pm
I always cook/bake with Kosher salt. Table salt would really have thrown it over the top! I think it was my olives and tapenade, which were quite salty.
kitchen therapy said,
June 16, 2013 at 3:29 am
I loved all the ingredients in this bread, however they just didn’t really work for me when I put them all together.
I’m glad to hear it worked out well for you!
gaaarp said,
June 16, 2013 at 7:57 pm
This bread was really good but could definitely do with some tweaking, too. Cheese and olives in bread — you almost can’t go wrong!
betsy said,
June 15, 2013 at 7:50 pm
I added the salt, but it didn’t come out too salty. I guess there’s a lot of variability in the saltiness of olives, though. Nice of you to share a second loaf of this. Lucky friend.
gaaarp said,
June 15, 2013 at 7:54 pm
I think my cheese was kind of salty, too, so it was a cumulative effect.
Diane (@SimpleLivingEat) said,
June 15, 2013 at 10:50 am
My pan was a bit oily but I was happy how easily it came out of the dish… but your right with the oil in the olives you don’t need as much. I felt that it didn’t need extra salt either because of all the cured ingredients.
gaaarp said,
June 15, 2013 at 7:53 pm
The oil packed olives were so good! I bought extra, and I’ve been munching on them since I made the bread.
TheKitchenLioness said,
June 15, 2013 at 2:03 am
Interesting that we all had different results and I also believethat it might depend on the kinds of cheese (s) used or other addtions made to the recipe – how nice that you made two loaves and are bringing one to a friend´s house.
Have a good weekend!
gaaarp said,
June 15, 2013 at 7:52 pm
The bread was a hit at happy hour! It was especially good with goat cheese and the white bean-tuna spread someone brought.
nana said,
June 14, 2013 at 8:55 pm
As much as we enjoyed this bread, I thought it was a bit oily too.
I thought it might have been the cheese and the oily olives. But, that
didn’t stop me from eating it. I love all breads and that is my downfall.
gaaarp said,
June 14, 2013 at 9:33 pm
I think without the oil, it would have been perfect.
oneexpatslife said,
June 14, 2013 at 3:42 pm
Hmm, mine wasn’t too oily, but my cheese was quiet aged and a little on the dry side, so I guess it’s one of those where you have to gauge the ingredients as you go.
gaaarp said,
June 14, 2013 at 9:32 pm
Yes, the cheese probably had something to do with it. I used a good aged Swiss and a cheddar, which may have been the culprit.
Cher said,
June 14, 2013 at 12:04 pm
It is interesting how varied the results were – from dry to moist to oily.
The flavors in this bread were great though and I can see some simple bistro style lunches in my future with some of this bread…
gaaarp said,
June 14, 2013 at 9:31 pm
We even had difference in opinion here. I found it too oily and salty (although still delicious), but my mom loved it just the way it was.