Something I have been baking a lot of recently is something called Kringle. It's a Norwegian pastry made from sweet yeast dough and is AMAZING! You can add a lot of different fillings too to make it just how you like. I recently auditioned for The Great British Bake Off and the judges, Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry really liked this. It is traditionally made into a pretzel or ring shape and looks beautiful when latticed for a bit of detail. It take a bit of practice but when you have it mastered you can do it with your eyes shut.
The one I have been making has what they call a 'macroonfyll' which is made up of cream, egg and hazlenuts.
Ingredients:
1 Packet of dried yeast or 50g fresh
2 eggs
pinch of saffron or tumeric for colour
150g butter - plus extra for decorating and greasing
500ml milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
100ml sugar (yes ml, not grams, Norwegian measurements)
2 tsp ground cardamom, hard to find, so if you really want it you'll have to grind it from pods by hand
880g of flour - some recipes use less but the it ends up like goo.....
150g toasted hazelnuts, chopped.
100ml double cream
100g of your favourite chocolate, grated
Make up some glace icing at the end
Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. Warm up the milk and honey to a yeast friendly temperature and then add the yeast and mix until fairly smooth, and in a separate bowl melt the butter. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and then mix. Add the eggs to the milky honey mixture and then add this mixture to the flour and butter one. Mix until combined, cover and leave somewhere, preferably warm to rise for 30 - 60 minutes.
Mix the hazelnuts with the icing sugar and cream, whip until thick and it starts to stiffen. Leave in fridge until needed.
Tip the dough out onto a flour surface an knead until workable and elastic without being firm. Roll the pastry out into a long oblong. Know take some butter, make sure it is very soft, then spread it all the way along the dough. Make cuts down the side of the dough on both sides, but make one side half a cut above the other so it is slightly offset. Sprinkle the chocolate along the dough down the middle and spread the cream and hazelnut mixture in the middle down the dough also. Now take the cut finger of dough and make them meet in the middle and pinch them together so it is latticed all of the way down. Folding the ends in at the top and bottom. Shape into your chosen shape. Cover and leave to rise for another 30 min.
Paul Hollywood gave me some good advice here, and that was to a) use a chocolate that you love eating, opposed to cooking chocolate as it can taste a a bit candy like. And to not be afraid to let it go very golden in the oven.
Put little dabs of butter along the latticed parts and smother in sugar and hazelnuts. Cook in a preheated oven at 225 degrees, 215 if its a fan oven, for 20 minutes until it has a good golden colour.
When cool drizzle over a gorgeous amount of icing sugar and devour, nom!
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