Almond Vanilla Twisted Bread

• Vegetarian

• Refrigerated

  • 1 Egg
  • 2 Egg whites, medium

• Baking & Spices

  • 500 g (4 + scant 1/4 cups strong white bread flour, strong
  • 10 g Fast action yeast
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 50 g Sugar
  • 2 tbsp Sugar
  • 1 Vanilla pod

• Nuts & Seeds

  • 50 g Almonds, ground
  • 1 handful Almonds, flaked

• Dairy

  • 100 g Butter
  • 1 Egg yolk beaten with a little milk
  • 240 ml Whole milk

• Desserts

  • 200 g Marzipan

Found on domesticgothess.com

Ingredients

• 240ml (1 cup) whole milk
• 50g (scant ¼ cup) butter
• 1 vanilla pod/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 500g (4 + scant ¼ cups) strong white bread flour
• 50g (1/4 cup) sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 10g (3 tsp) fast action yeast
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 medium egg whites
• 200g (7oz) marzipan
• 50g (scant ¼ cup) softened butter
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 50g (2 oz) ground almonds
• 1 egg yolk beaten with a little milk
• handful flaked almonds

Directions

• Place the milk, butter and vanilla in a pan and heat until just boiling. Remove from the heat and leave to cool until lukewarm (scalding the milk like this helps to make the finished loaf softer).
• Place the flour in a large bowl (the bowl of your stand mixer if you have one) and add the yeast to one side and the sugar and salt to the other. Add the egg and the lukewarm milk (scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod if using, then remove the pod) and mix it all together until it forms a sticky dough.
• Knead either with the mixer or by hand on an un-floured surface until the dough is smooth and stretchy. If you are kneading by hand it will be quite sticky to start with, but after a few minutes of kneading it will become smooth (you may need to prise it off the work surface with a dough scraper).
• Place in a clean lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled clingfilm. At this point you can either let it rise for an hour or so at room temperature until doubled in size, or place the dough in the fridge to rise overnight.
• If you have left the dough in the fridge overnight, let it sit out for about half an hour to come up to room temperature.
• Meanwhile, make the filling. Place the egg whites in a food processor and pulse until they are frothy. Crumble in the marzipan and continue to pulse until smooth. Add the butter, sugar and ground almonds and pulse again until combined.
• Line the base of a deep, 23cm/9in round, removable base cake tin with greaseproof paper.
• Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into an 36x46cm/18x14in rectangle. Spread the filling all over the dough leaving an inch gap around the edges.
• Roll the dough up from the long side (like making cinnamon rolls),cut the roll of dough in half lengthways, leaving an inch or so at the top uncut. This next part is messy, be prepared to get almond filling everywhere...Twist the dough all the way along so that it so that it has a coiled appearance. Coil the length of twisted dough into the prepared cake tin in a spiral shape.
• Cover loosely with oiled clingfilm and set aside to rise for an hour or so until risen and puffy.
• Heat the oven to 200C/400Fgas mark 6.
• Brush the risen dough with the beaten egg yolk and scatter over the flaked almonds. Bake for 50-60 minutes, covering with tin foil once the top is brown. It is done when the centre measures 94°C/200°F on a probe thermometer.
• Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack for at least half an hour before unmoulding.