White Chocolate and Cranberry Saffron Braid
Ingredients
Dough:
- 50g (3½ tbsp) butter
- ½ gram (¼ tsp) ground saffron
- 200ml (⅘ cup) milk
- 1 egg
- 7g (2 tsp) dried yeast (see note 1)
- 100g (½ cup) sugar
- 300-450g (2½ cups - 3¾ cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
Cranberry Sauce:
- 65g fresh cranberries (see note 3)
- 1 tbs sugar
- 1 tbs water
Remaining ingredients:
- 150g (5¼ oz) white chocolate (cut into chunks)
- 1 egg (for the egg wash)
- icing sugar (for sprinkling)
Instructions
- Heat the butter in a pan.
- When melted, add the saffron, stir, and allow the mixture to cook for a couple of minutes.
- Remove from the heat, and stir in the milk. Allow to sit for around 15 minutes.
- Add the cooled mixture and the egg to your stand mixer, and give it a quick mix (see note 4).
- Add the remaining ingredients and 300g of flour and start to mix.
- Gradually add more flour as needed (one tablespoon at a time). Be careful with this step, as too much flour will result in dry bread.
- The dough has had enough flour when it still feels sticky, but most of it comes off the attachment when you pull it.
- Switch to a dough hook attachment (if you have one) and knead the dough for around 5-7 minutes. When ready, the dough will have formed into more of a ball, should be shiny, elastic and drop fairly easily from the hook.
- Cover with a tea-towel and allow the dough to proof in a warm place for around an hour (or until doubled in size).
Cranberry Sauce:
- Add all three ingredients to a pan and heat them until the cranberries start to pop and soften.
- Blitz them in a food processor until fairly smooth (lumps are okay). Set to one side.
Assembly:
- When the dough is ready, line a large baking tray with baking paper and pre-heat the oven to 190℃ / 374℉.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a large rectangle shape. It doesn't matter too much about specifics, but make sure your dough is fairly thin and has an even thickness throughout (see note 5)
- Down the centre of the rolled out dough, spread your cranberry jam.
- Next, cover the jam with chocolate chunks, making sure to keep them in one layer (not on top of each other) so that they can melt.
- Cut strips, slightly diagonally, down either side of the jam/chocolate.
- Carefully, alternating between one side and the next, place each strip over the jam/chocolate in a criss-cross pattern. Tuck both ends underneath themselves.
- When ready, carefully move onto the prepared baking tray.
- Beat the egg and liberally wash over the dough.
- Bake for around 15 minutes, until the bread is golden (don't over-bake it).
- Leave to cool for around 30 minutes and then sprinkle with icing sugar. Slice and eat it immediately. Enjoy!
Notes
- In Sweden we have something called dried yeast. It is used both in warm liquid to proof and also added directly to flour. I am aware that the US has two options for dried yeast, and I believe dry active yeast is the most similar for the purpose of making this particular recipe.
- You can use spelt or regular flour for this recipe (just use the same amount).
- I used fresh cranberries, but you can use frozen. Just follow the same instructions. I used only 65g, which I felt was perfect. However, if you like cranberries, use a little more.
- I have made the dough using a stand mixer, but you could prepare the dough without one (just follow exactly the same instructions).
- You might want to divide the dough into two, and have two braids. My braid was very large and quite difficult to handle!