Eva’s stone bread recipe

I’m over the moon right now.

I decided to celebrate my last day of winter break by making the ‘stone cakes’ recipe that Eva gave me on my last weekend in Zürich (it’s translated ‘cake,’ but it’s more bread-like). It has to be one of my favorite breads ever, but, to be fair, I rarely come across a bread I don’t like. After it came out I was anxiously hovering over it waiting for it too cool just a bit to cut it….it was a success! Not the perfection that was Eva’s (I was missing some of the fruits & nuts and it looked a little different) but very yummy none the less!

This was the recipe she gave me. Even the recipe card is lovely, isn’t it? I love her little picture of the 2x loaves. If you have a kitchen measuring device I would stick with her directions, but I also looked up and approximated the English version of the ingredients and here, dear readers, is your ticket to a better bread-dining experience:

Eva’s stone bread recipe
Makes 2 loaves

• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar (I used 1.5 and I might go down even more next time)
• 6 eggs
• 3-4 spoons anise seeds
• ~2 cups almonds (I used sliced almonds so I only put in 1 cup)
• ~ 2 cups dried fruit (Eva used figs & apricot)
• Hazelnut (optional)*

directions (well, what I did at least)

1. Preheat the oven for 300F.
2. I mixed the flour, sugar, and eggs first to make the dough. Then I mixed in the seeds, nuts, and fruit. It gets quite sticky so I ended up having to use my hands. Pack dough into a bread pan so that it lays flat and gets into all the corners. It’s kind of like rice krispies in that you kind of have to make it the shape you want because it won’t rise or move very much. *Eva would dot the top with hazelnuts for decoration. Beautiful and yummy, but unfortunately I didn’t have any.
3. Bake for 1.5-2 hours.

Raw dough. Yes, I didn’t have a mixing bow so I just used a pot. Disclaimer: I forgot the apricots. But the figs were great!

Enjoy with a little pat of butter! You won’t need any jam because the fruit inside is wonderful. And I love the anise seed taste, which I don’t know if I would have recognized if I hadn’t had this bread. Nothing makes me miss Zürich more than thinking about mornings at her house.

(You can see the hazelnuts! Clearly a superior loaf)

Thank you, Eva! I’m so happy!