Recipe 43: Apricot Couronne

This was a bit of a complicated one. Apricot Couronne is apparently a French Christmas treat, used at a family gathering or sometimes even as a gift in the festive season! It is also a little bit tricky to bake!

It all starts with the night before the bake, place the apricots in a bowl and pour the orange juice on top, this is for the filling of the bread.

It's a very small amount of dough to make, it only required like 250g of strong white flour. So along with the flour went the usual yeast and salt, also on top was unsalted butter, one egg and some warm milk. Then mix all together and I know this is random, but it smelt a bit like a donut recipe and looked like one too, with the kind of darker shade of dough.

One thing I liked about this recipe was that I didn't have to knead for as long as there wasn't as much as there usually is! The recipe recommended kneading for about 6 minutes and it worked out really nice and smooth. After this, leave to rise for an hour or so.

In the meantime, it's time to make a filling for the bread (sounds so odd, like I should be making a cake, not bread!) so I had to drain the orange juice from the apricots. Then cream butter and sugar together (see, very cake like!) and mix in the favours; apricots, raisins, walnut, orange zest and some plain flour.

After the dough has risen, I had to carefully tip it from the bowl so I didn't have to knock the air out and then roll it into a rectangle. Once this is done, I had to spread the mixture evenly across the dough. I then had to roll the marzipan thinly and place over the mixture. So it was the dough, apricot mixture and then marzipan all layered on each other. This then had to be rolled up like a swiss roll.

This next part was a little different! Now the dough is in it's roll, leaving it intact at the top, you then have to slice it all the way down. It pretty much looks like a pair of legs. Then twirl the dough length ways and join the ends so it ends as a circle. Then leave to prove for an hour.

After the dough has proved and it springs back if you give it a light poke, it's time to bake for 25 minutes until it's a nice golden colour!

While the Couronne is cooling on the wire rack, I made the glaze for the top. I warmed the apricot blaze with a little water and brushed over the top of the warm bake, this was much like the hot cross buns. After that, I dribbled over some very thinly made icing sugar and then scattered the almonds on top. Finished!

I think there are a lot of things I could of done differently with this one, I think the main issue I had was the shape, I think I over twirled, it didn't need that much and was falling apart by the time I was transferring, etc. If I bake this again, will keep it smaller and then I think this will impact the favour more as this time, when it was amazing, all the marzipan was pouring about, looking more like melted cheese!

 Reviews? Everyone loved it, which I'm surprised by. I thought mine came out very deflated looking and worried it was under baked but my critics tell me differently!

The next recipe is the last of the favoured bread section and then it is onto Sourdough Breads! My starter dough is already in the making!