Apple almond paste rings

I haven’t been able to post a recipe in a while which makes me feel bad because I actually baked a lot: German cheesecake, apple almond paste bundt cake, with buttermilk cheesecake-chocolate squares and so on. But I haven’t managed to sit down quietly enough to write them down. So many things are happening right now. Complicated ones but also many good ones. Exciting times. I hope you cope with me and come back from time to time anyway. I am still around and I am happy if you come by and try one or the other recipe.

This particular recipe is actually a substitute for one I couldn’t find: Here in Germany we have a cake called Kranzkuchen (literally: ring cake) made from yeast dough filled with almond paste and raisins, topped with a sugary drizzle of frosting. But no recipe to be found – nowhere. Probably all the grandmothers baking these cakes don’t use the internet. And I haven’t found a recipe in any of my cookbooks either. Hm. But this one here comes close and is as yummy. It’s from Leila Lindholms a piece of cake. I varied it by substituting bread flour by all purpose flour and sugar by muscovado. Its a perfect treat for these dark days coming up.

Yield: 2 cakes

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 1 tbsp black cardamom seeds, crushed
• 300 ml milk
• 50 g fresh yeast
• 120 g muscovado sugar
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 150 g butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 660-720 g all-purpose flour

For the filling:

• 200 g butter, softened
• 80 g muscovado sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 200 g almond paste, ground
• 2 ripe apples, ground

For the topping:

• 1 egg, whisked
• flaked almonds

Directions:

Grease 2 springforms of 24cm / 9in diameter.

Mix crushed cardamom seeds with the milk and heat until hand warm. Crumble yeast into milk and dissolve with sugar, salt, butter and egg. Now using the kneading attachment of your stand mixer work in the flour in chunks until you obtain an even dough. Cover with a moist towel and let rest for about 45-60 minutes or until the volume has doubled. Shortly before resting time is over you can prepare the almond paste filling: Using a hand mixer beat butter, sugar, cinnamon and almond paste until creamy.  Then take the dough from its resting place and using a rolling pin spread into 2 pieces of 30x20cm / 12x8in dimensions and of about 0.5cm /0.2in height.  Using a spatula spread the almond paste filling evenly across each of the rectangles. If you stop spreading around 2cm /0.8in before the end it easen the rolling process which comes now. Starting at the long side, roll the dough tightly into a snake. Carefully place each snake into one springform and make the ends meet. Use a knife to angular cut a deep slit into the snake. Repeat every centimeter. Take every second of these cuts and pull apart so you can see the next layer inside the cake. Cover with a moist towel and let rest another 40-60 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C / 390°F. Now with a brush spread the whisked egg across the whole cake and sprinkle with almonds. Bake for about 20-30 minutes in the middle of the oven or until the top is golden brown. Let cool completely before removing from the baking dish. Serve with vanilla sauce.

Source: adapted from Leila Lindholm a piece of cake