Balsamic Roasted Onion and Parmesan Focaccia product reviews

For the past couple of weeks my taste buds have been on jealousy overdrive as I have read about this amazing bread. I have been looking for it whenever I went to the groceries and thankfully it finally was sitting there in the fridge aisle so I grabbed it. I choose to ignore the price as compared to the rest on show it was rather pricey and instead remembered all that I had read on the KR site.

We had spent the day at the beach and came home after having a Mr Whoopie ice cream did not want anything to heavy for dinner so opted for a pasta. This would be perfect condiment to add to the dish. My first thought was it reminded me of pizza bread and I also thought well it doesn't look that appetising and I prayed the girls would eat it.

Dishing it up my fears where realised as my youngest took one look and said yuck I am not eating that. She made her elder sister have a bite and when she said 'yum' she hesitantly took a bite. She ate most of it but leave a couple of bites. I think it was more the appearance then anything else. The rest of us really enjoyed it. I am a huge onion eater so basically anything with onions will most likely be a winner. I expected a garlicy/herby taste with it and found it was not that strong so for my second slice added some butter to it. To which I realised it was really unwarranted. There was a taste to it just rather suttle.

I am dying to trial the Cibatta Fold Filled with Garlic Butter and whilist everyone enjoyed this I think the jury is out until the other one is trialed and then we can decide which one we will carry on purchasing.

At the risk of sounding like one of the 'modern' generation... "Oh.... Em.... GEE!" I am so very very infatuated by this bread. After having a tiny taste, I was hooked and knew I wasn't going to be doing anything 'out of the box' with this... it's just too good as-is.

I tried preparing half of this this in a small bench-top oven but that proved to be too erratic, and it went from undercooked to overcooked in a matter of a minute. I was lucky to have caught it quickly, so it was still quite edible and some of the onions had just started to caramelise, releasing a new level of flavour. This made the bread even better, in my books.

I cut the bread into 'fingers' and used them as dipping sticks in a spicy Laksa soup - the spiciness of the soup was the perfect complement to the sweetness of the bread, and the soup soaked into the bread beautifully, without making it all soggy and fall-apart mushy. The second half of this loaf was prepared in a regular sized oven, and thus was in a more controlled environment. I followed the cooking times exactly, and was rewarded with perfectly cooked bread... and unfortunately none of the caramelised onions. To be clear, this is NOT a fault in the product, just a happy accident I wish I had repeated. (Knowing my luck, I would have botched it and would have carbonised the lot. )

Eating that bread as a side dish to some mild curried sausages was a good match too, allowing me to maximise flavour and minimise sauce wastage - always something I strive for. Why make a delicious sauce, only to leave half of it on the plate when you are done?!

Overall, while it is hard to find in stores, the effort is well rewarded by delightful meals with extra layers of flavour added. I am an instant fan of this, and will be tracking it down again... because all my attempts to recreate it myself just fall way short!

I think this is the first time I have had anything like this, and I wonder why I never decided to try it before! I found this to be a bit like pizza bread, only it was mostly onion and cheese, with a few herbs thrown in. I shared the bread with the other members of my family, and they all enjoyed it. We only had the bread on it's own, however, but it was very nice this way.

The bread had quite a nice sauce on it, I'm not quite sure what type of sauce it was, but it gave a pleasant undertone to the bread. I have LONG been a fan of pizza breads, so with this one not seeming to be very far from that, I was most eager to try it. I have also heard other suggestions for how to use this bread, one example was to use it as dipping sticks for things like soup, which I think is a great idea, I just didn't have any types of soup that I like.

This was also a slightly dense bread, but still spongy, it was actually quite a good density for something like this. The flavours blended together very well, and the texture was really good, not too firm and not too moist, it just made the whole experience very enjoyable. Overall, I would highly recommnend this bread to anyone who loves pizza breads, and on top of that, this bread felt healthy, to a degree, it certainly isn't as fatty and greasy as some other pizza breads I've eaten. This bread was easy to cook, it only needed 10 minutes at the specified temperature.

I would very much like to keep an eye out for this bread in the future, as I highly enjoyed it. Enjoy!

After the hit that the garlic butter bread was in this range, I was not entirely sure that this Balsamic Roasted Onion and Parmesan Focaccia would be a winner in my house. The adults would like it, but would the kids? In the end I put it to an even more ultimate test than the first bread, by inviting friends over for a dinner party.

For dinner, I put on a full roast with a chicken, pumpkin, my famous smashed potatoes, kumara, gravy and this Balsamic Roasted Onion and Parmesan bread warm from the oven. My friends were impressed by the meal, but when they saw the bread there were lots of nods of approval. They were really taken with the bread, and went back for seconds and thirds of the bread. Towards the end of the loaf they got very sneaky about it too!

My kids both ate their chicken and their bread, which means they enjoyed it. They don't eat things they don't like, and I was pleased they ate as much dinner as they did. Hubby was impressed with the bread and the onion "relish" topping. I don't always like Balsamic but this was really good, and quite a grown up taste. After the meal I got grilled on where to buy the ingredients to make the bread. So I told them I had seen it at New World, then they asked about the topping. They were surprised the whole thing came as one par-baked thing and that I didn't have to do much at all. So I suspect that they will be looking for it next time they go for a shopping trip.

Now I know this bread is a hit with my kids, as well as myself and hubby I can rest easy popping it into the trolley next time we are in a New World as well. I think the garlic loaf would still be the winner of the two flavours we tried, but this one did score very highly amongst the whole group who tried it.

It is always great to see new products with a point of difference so was keen to try this bread. We love bread in our house and the fresher the better. This made this bread perfect as by taking it out of the fridge and popping it into the oven for 12 minutes not only did I have fresh bread but fresh, scrumptious artisan bread.

The labelling on this bread is very eye catching and I love how it had a photo of what the bread looked like after being cooked as by looking in the packet you can see a lot of butter, but not the onion. I cut this loaf in half as one loaf was too big for the family. I first night I served it with potato soup. The roasted onion complemented the soup nicely. When pulling out of the oven the butter was pooling in the holes of the focaccia. This made it difficult to slice while hot.

I had been told that adding cheese to this loaf was also nice so tried this with the second half. I just use grated mild cheese. This turned the bread from a extra to a snack of it's own. I think it is bread is going to be nice to have when entertaining as it has that point of difference to garlic bread. Thanks Kapiti Bakehouse and KIWIreviews for introducing this product to my family.

I was stoked when I was given some of this bread to review as we are big bread fans in our family! As well as good old daily toast and sandwiches, I like to make my own fresh bread and I'm sometimes tempted to buy fancy artisan breads such as this.

I had all good intentions to serve this bread with a lovely soup, but when I discovered my pumpkin was rotten, the bread became a very fancy side dish to a basic dinner of bacon and srambled eggs instead. I heated the bread in the oven according to instructions but decided to take it out a couple of minutes early. We are not fans of very crispy bread and I found that ten minutes gave it long enough to heat well, but still keeping it fairly soft (with just a hint of crispiness on the outside).

This bread does not scrimp on the toppings and is absolutely delicious- honestly the best artisan bread I've tried. It really doesn't need to be served with anything as it's got a great amount of flavour all on it's own and it has a lovely buttery oiliness to the top which feels a bit like a dipping sauce. My 6 year old doesn't like onion (if she can see it) so wasn't really keen on this bread but I see it more of an adult treat anyway. It was a lot for my husband and I though, so we actually re-heated it in the microwave (against the instructions) and it was perfectly fine. Next time I'd probably just cook half the loaf one day, and half the next day though.

I loved that this bread could keep well in the fridge but without preservatives and additives. It may not be a healthy treat as such, but I've kept the healthy rating high due to it not having these additives. I'll be seeking this out and definitely buying it again for a treat from time to time.

The combination of the balsamic roasted onion and parmesan focaccia sounded like a treat for the tastebuds. I had already tried Kapiti's Cibatta Fold filled with fresh garlic butter, so I knew that I would love this restaurant quality food in my home.

I have to admit, that I overcooked the first attempt I had at cooking a wedge of this bread. I got carried away with preparing some pre dinner snacks and forgot to put a timer on. The wonderful news is that, although it was rather crunchy, it was still VERY tasty. In fact, I would have been totally happy and accepting of the outcome if I hadn't known that I had overcooked it!

After cutting the wedge for our pre-dinner snacks, I resealed the bag with a Magic Lock Sliding Bag Sealer (fantastic items to have in the cupboard for such occasions!). It kept perfectly in the fridge for a couple of days until I was ready to use the rest of it.

The next time I wanted to use it, I was a bit more focused and actually followed the VERY simple instructions! I preheated the oven to 180 degrees and put the bread in for 12 minutes. It was so easy and the result was perfect. It was slightly crispy on the outside and beautifully soft on the inside. The bread is quite oily and I think that it doesn't need any dips, spreads etc. It is a treat all by itself. I served it with a nice, fresh raw salad. The combination was very nice.

Mr 5 wasn't keen on the onion (he never is) and he picked it off and then ate up every crumb of the bread he could find. The rest of the family loved the bread and the topping and we were happy to eat the onion that Mr 5 had taken off his!

As with the Cibatta Fold, it is great to see that these products are preservative and additive free and they have simple, recognisable ingredients. This is certainly my preference when it comes to serving food to my family. Based on this information, I am giving this product a "healthy" score of 10 (even though too much of it wouldn't be too good for the waistline - it is a treat food with good ingredients in it.).

The Kapiti Artisan Bread website http://kapitiartisanbread.co.nz/ shows all the places where it can be purchased. Hamilton has two places, New World in Te Rapa and Hillcrest. I can guarantee that I will be taking the effort to drive out of my way to one of the stockists of this bread.

I am already looking forward to an excuse, any excuse, to drive over to New World and pick up another loaf! I might have to dream one up if another opportunity doesn't present itself soon!