Almond Marmalade Twist

This is a fun baking recipe which looks like a beautiful show stopper and is very straight forward to shape. You won’t need any fancy ingredients for this as I am sure all the ingredients will already be in your pantry.

Ingredients:

10g (3 tsp) instant yeast
1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
125 ml (1/2 cup) warmed milk
2 egg yolks
100g melted butter
180 ml (3/4 cup) warm water
450g (3 cup) plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
120g (3/4 cup) roasted natural almonds
75g (1/3 cup) granulated or demerara sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
100g extra butter, melted
1 tbsp orange rind
2 tbsp granulated sugar
40g (1/4 cup) roasted natural almonds, halved
Orange Marmalade for topping

Method:

Combine milk, caster sugar and milk in a bowl. Cover and let it sit in a warm place for 10 minutes. The mixture will get frothy.
Add egg yolks, butter, water, flour and salt to yeast mixture and knead it until smooth and elastic. Place dough in a oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and put it in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.
In a food processor, process almonds until finely ground. Place in a small bowl and mix demerara sugar and cinnamon.
In another bowl, mix 80g melted butter with grated orange rind.
Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a large oven tray.
Roll dough, on a floured baking sheet, into a rectangle. Roughly 25cm x 45cm.
Brush with butter and orange and sprinkle ground almonds all over. Leaving a 1 cm border on each side.
Firmly roll into a log.

Use a sharp knife to cut dough into half lengthwise leaving a 2 cm border at the top.
Twist the lengths together and shape it in a ring, joining the two ends together.
Brush with extra melted butter and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake at 200C for 10 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 180C. Bake for further 30 minutes.
Let it cool and generously top with marmalade and sliced almonds.

Tips:

You can use all-spice in place of cinnamon if you prefer those flavours. It is very handy to have an extra person to help you when you shape the bread. They can help you lift the bread to the baking tray with the shape intact. The bread tastes best on the day it is baked. It makes a large round bread which serves 8-10 people. Perfect for a weekend brunch.