Greek Celebration Bread

Moving on to the second recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice... Artos.  I had several reasons I wanted to really love this bread.  First, I was a Greek and Latin major, so anything from the Mare Nostrum region gets a few bonus points.  Second, I just got a lot of spices at Penzey's and I wanted to put them to good use.  Finally (somewhat related to the second point), this bread has a lot of relatively  expensive ingredients (almond extract, various spices, olive oil, honey, eggs etc), so I knew I would be very annoyed if it did not turn out well.  

I followed the recipe exactly and omitted the glaze (because I think the sugar ants would have liked it even more than the humans in this household).   

I liked this bread more than the Anadama bread, mostly because I prefer honey to molasses and I really liked the spices. 

Other people liked the bread too.  I brought a rustic loaf and the Artos to a pot-luck meal... lets just say the rustic loaf was not a big hit (perhaps too much energy to chew?).  I wasn't surprised since most people tend to prefer soft, enriched bread to bread with a harder crust and hole-y interior).  

My husband's comment was, "mi piace molto" (he's very picky).  He said it was similar to challah, only better... I'd hope so since the vegetable oil is replaced with olive oil; sugar with honey; water with milk.  

Kids loved it.

I think it would make really good cinnamon toast.  I plan to serve the leftovers that way tomorrow morning.

Here is a picture of the bread.  In the background I have a regular rustic loaf (I know-- heresy!-- that loaf is not sitting on its baking stone.  I've found that in that particular oven, the bottom burns if I cook it on the stone.  I do not have this problem in my other (gas) oven)