Review: Gardenia Sommerset Cottage From European Cottage Style Bread Range

If you're a long follower of this blog, you would know that I'm a bread lover. It always excites me when I can get nice & healthy multi-grains  loaves other than those standard stuff I get off the shelves. I used to buy discounted gourmet breads in a hotel after 6.00pm near my workplace but since I've stopped working there... our bread loaves are limited to Adventist loaves and we're also loving Massimo Wheat Germ as I can get them easily here. I know how to bake bread, just that I'm so lazy to bake a batch. Moreover freezer space is rather limited. It just not worth baking a loaf or two as the time and work involved is just isn't worth it unless I make a bigger batch.

I loved the range of bread available in Singapore. You can find gourmet loaves easily on supermarket shelves. Whenever Capt'n Hook goes to Singapore for meetings or my aunt come visiting, I'll ask them to get my fave Gardenia's Banana Walnut Loaf. 3 years have gone by and Gardenia has yet to launch similar loaf in Malaysia :( and I doubt they'll sell it here. It's also sad to note that the Butterscotch Toast'em has became a rather sad loaf with very few blotches of butterscotch in a loaf.

When I pass by the mini market last week, I was surprised to see Gardenia has a range of new bread on the shelves. Labelled as European Cottage Style Bread, I noted there are 3 in this range namely - Sommerset Cottage, Passione Italiana and Bonjour. Sommerset Cottage is an English loaf that has 12 multi grains & seeds.



Passione Italiana is the Italian loaf that oooo surprise surprise sundried tomato, olives and a blend of Italian herbs. Not many Malaysian know what is sundried tomato let alone has tasted them! I held on to one loaf to read the ingredients and I can certainly smell the herbs!

Lastly, there's the French style bread named Bonjour. This one is basically a white bread coated with white and black sesame seeds.



I grabbed the Sommerset Cottage since I like multi-grains bread to test out first. I had them with plain butter, butter with strawberry jam and of course not to be missed out peanut butter! Although I loved the idea of a multi-grains and seeds bread but the texture somehow it's a little too soft to my liking as you can see in the pic below. I supposed Malaysians are not used to dense loaf. Other than this, I'm pretty sure Malaysians would be quite receptive to this range of bread as quite a number of people is turning to eat healthily. Price wise, I would think it's a little steep for such kinda loaf size. The price range is in between RM4 - RM5. With about RM2 more, I could get a bigger and denser Adventist loaves... no choice for the comparison as I'm really a frugal housewife lol.



I ate 2 slices for breakfast at around 9.00am and it lasted me to about 12.30pm before my stomach starts to growl which is not too bad for 2 slices of Adventist bread could last me to about 1.00pm :D

I might just get the Passione Italiana and try it with sundried tomato cream cheese spread or even make a bruschetta out of them... let's just see then ;-)

You can find these European loaves at these locations.