Marie Lesoudier, Laura Chenel’s Chevre’s General Manager, is a smart, spiky young French woman with an amazing palate – a French palate to be sure.  Marie was in Sonoma at the very beginning of the story between Laura Chenel’s Chevre and the Triballat family.  She has stayed on and invested a few years of her life to assure that the integrity of the mission was maintained and write a new chapter of the adventure.

We were discussing Melodie, our delicious soft ripened, ash coated goat cheese, and what might be some good serving suggestions.  After some consideration, Marie suggested pain d’epice, a French spiced cake/bread that is frequently served with a cheese course.

Several years had passed since I was in cooking school, which was the last time I made pain d’epice, and a recipe search led me to Laura Werlin’s “Cheese Essentials”.  Sure enough I found a recipe for the Burgundian specialty and a suggestion from Laura that it would be delicious with Epoisses.

A few test batches later, I made some changes with enthusiastic input from Marie and Isabelle, our cheesemaker, and the resulting recipe follows.

This French inspired pairing is wonderful.  The recipe is quite simple and as Laura suggests in her book, it gets better a few days after being baked.  Have it on hand for the holidays to dress up and inspire your cheese platters.  It is wonderful with all of our goat cheeses but do try it with Epoisses!

 Pain d’Epices

1 cup milk                                                                 ¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup heavy cream                                                   1-1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¾ cup packed brown sugar                                       ¾ teaspoon anise seed

1 cup honey                                                              ½ teaspoon ground ginger

2 cups all-purpose flour                                             ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1-3/4 cup whole wheat flour                                      2 large eggs, lightly beaten

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Butter and lightly flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

In a medium size saucepan, combine the milk, sugar and honey and bring to boil.  Immediately reduce heat to simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar has melted and mixture comes together, about 10 minutes.  It will be a little clumpy.  Let cool to lukewarm.

In large mixing bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and all of the dry spices.  Make a well in the center.  Pour a little of the milk and sugar mixture into the well.  Using a wooden spoon, stir to incorporate the dry ingredients.  Continue until the wet and dry ingredients are combined.  (To be honest, I used a paddle and a mixer.)

Add eggs and stir until they are mixed in.  The batter will be fairly thick.  Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 325 F.  Continue baking until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out almost clean with just a few crumbs clinging, about 40 more minutes.

Let cool for 30 minutes then turn the bread out onto a rack to continue cooling completely.

Cut into ½ inch slices – or toast for a crisp texture.

Makes 1 loaf

Adapted from a recipe from Laura Werlin’s “Cheese Essentials”, Steward, Tabori & Chang, New York, 2007.