By Abbe Wichman
Beth Mansfield of Idyllwild Bread, found at The Market at Union Hall in North Salem and South Salem’s Gossett’s Farmers’ Market and Smith & East Market, generally has a chocolate bread in her regular rotation as an homage to Richard Bourdon of Berkshire Mountain Bakery.
For Valentine’s Day she’s baking a chocolate, tart cherry and Meyer lemon zest bread; loaves with Luxardo cherries and chocolate compound butter; buckwheat-cherry-and-candied-pecan sourdough, and a double chocolate malted wheat. Mansfield, who hails from California, says the double chocolate malted bread “is a love letter to Thrifty, a beloved West Coast drugstore ice cream.”