The Holidays are an occasion for planning a special dessert or two. This tasty dried fruit ring brings strudel to mind, and will be quite beautiful if carefully made. You'll need:
Prep Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Ingredients:
- 4 1/5 cups (500 g) unbleached all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (100 g) unsalted butter, melted
- 2/5 cup (100 ml) whole milk, warm
- 2/3 cup (120 g) sugar
- 5 ounces (125 g) raisins
- 5 ounces (125 g) dried figs, chopped
- 5 ounces (125 g) dried apricots, chopped
- 2 ounces (50 g) pine nuts
- 2 ounces (50 g) shelled hazelnuts, chopped
- 5 eggs
- An apple, peeled, cored, and diced
- The grated zest of an untreated lemon
- 1 packet active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or a packet of vanillin
- 2-3 tablespoons Marsala (a Sicilian fortified wine)
- Powdered cinnamon
- Salt
- --
- To decorate it you'll need:
- Tiny silvery sugar balls
- Crumbled hazelnut crunch
Preparation:
Sift the flour into a bowl and mix the yeast into it. Make a well in the flour, and mix in 1/3 of the sugar, 3 eggs, the melted butter, 1 level teaspoon of salt, the lemon zest, and the vanilla. Mix well, first with the tines of a fork and then with your hands, adding the milk a bit a time. Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes, forming it up and striking it against your work surface, until the dough is soft, homogeneous, and not sticky. Flour the bowl, return the dough to it, cover it with a damp cloth, and set it in a warm place to rise until it has doubled in volume, about 90 minutes.
In the meantime, rinse and dry the raisins, and plump them in the Marsala for at least a half hour. Next, combine the various chopped dried fruits, the pine nuts and the hazelnuts; lightly beat an egg and add it to the mixture, together with the raisins, the remaining sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon.
Cover a baking tin with oven paper or parchment.
When the dough has finished rising, roll it out into a roughly 12 by 20-inch (30 by 50 cm) rectangle. Distribute the dried fruit mixture evenly over it and roll it up along one of the long sides. Transfer it to the baking sheet, bending it around to make a ring, and slipping one end into a little into the other. Use the leftover pits of dough to make a strip that you will wrap around the point where the ends meet, both to seal the ring and to hide the unsightly joint. Take a sharp knife and cut around the top of the ring in a zigzag pattern.
Beat the last egg and use it to brush the surface of the cake. Sprinkle the silver stars and the crumbled hazelnut crunch over the cake to decorate it, and set it to rise for a final half hour in a warm place. In the meantime preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C). Bake the cake for a half hour, covering the top with a sheet of aluminum foil if it looks to be browning overmuch.
The authors suggest that you ring the cake with sprigs of green to make a centerpiece wreath for your table.
In the meantime, rinse and dry the raisins, and plump them in the Marsala for at least a half hour. Next, combine the various chopped dried fruits, the pine nuts and the hazelnuts; lightly beat an egg and add it to the mixture, together with the raisins, the remaining sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon.
Cover a baking tin with oven paper or parchment.
When the dough has finished rising, roll it out into a roughly 12 by 20-inch (30 by 50 cm) rectangle. Distribute the dried fruit mixture evenly over it and roll it up along one of the long sides. Transfer it to the baking sheet, bending it around to make a ring, and slipping one end into a little into the other. Use the leftover pits of dough to make a strip that you will wrap around the point where the ends meet, both to seal the ring and to hide the unsightly joint. Take a sharp knife and cut around the top of the ring in a zigzag pattern.
Beat the last egg and use it to brush the surface of the cake. Sprinkle the silver stars and the crumbled hazelnut crunch over the cake to decorate it, and set it to rise for a final half hour in a warm place. In the meantime preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C). Bake the cake for a half hour, covering the top with a sheet of aluminum foil if it looks to be browning overmuch.
The authors suggest that you ring the cake with sprigs of green to make a centerpiece wreath for your table.
