Apple Cinnamon Twist

This recipe is a bake along challenge on Flourish..the King Arthur Flour Blog. I have made several recipes from this blog & have really liked all of them. 

This twist is really simple & is delicious. The soft yeast dough is wrapped around an apple cinnamon filling, twisted , baked until brown then when cool iced with a delicious glaze….Really… could this be any better? I don’t think so!

This is a  yeast dough but very easy to make. You can mix it by hand oar use your mix master..either way works great. Don’t let the fact that it is yeast dough scare you!!  This recipe calls for instant yeast which  is mixed right into the flour so no blooming of the yeast…Give it a try…really!!! Another recipe note..the recipe calls for milk but I used water to make this parve/non-dairy, I am sure one could substitute any non-dairy milk like almond, soy or rice milk.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

For the Dough

3 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup + 1 tbsp dry instant mashed potatoes UNF:AVOURED

3 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp INSTANT YEAST

1 1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp vegan margarine *** or butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup + 2 tbsp room temperature water *** or  milk, or any non-dairy milks….

For the Filling

1 cup of grated apple….so 1 large apple or 2 medium size apples…this doesn’t have to be exact but you would want more than less.

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp cinnamon

For the Glaze

1 cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

1 to 2 tbsp of water… enough to make this able to drizzle

Method 

You will need 1 or 2 baking sheets… line them each with parchment paper

1. Make the dough You can make this is your mis master or by hand.. whisk the flour, potato flakes, sugar, yeast & salt together. Them add the margarine, vanilla, egg & water mixing until the dough is soft & as the recipe says…a shaggy dough.  *** I mix this by hand so I wished the margarine, vanilla, egg & water together first, then added that to the flour
2. Knead the dough until it is smooth & soft. IF you are using your hands, knead on a lightly floured surface. Be careful not to add too much flour. You want the dough to be soft & sticky, but if you need to, just rub flour on your hands to keep the dough from sticking to your hands too much…
3. Lightly oil a bowl, by putting a little oil in the bottom of a clean bowl, taking your hands spread the oil all over the bowl, then but the kneaded bread dough into the bowl & turn it around so that the dough is lightly oiled. Cove r the bowl with plastic wrap & let rise in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size. About 1 1/2 to 2 hours
4. Meanwhile make the filing.. Put the grated apple into a small saycepan. Pour the lemon juice on the apples & mix.
5. Whisk the sugar, cornstarch & cinnamon together. Mix this with the apples in the saucepan. Cook this over low heat stirring, until the apples start ot soften. Increassse the heat to meduim & bring to a simmer. Simmer until the mixture thickens…stir constantly…this takes only about 1 -2 minutes.. , the recipe says to test the doneness of the apples by srawing a spatula across the bottom of the saucepan & this should leave a track that doen not fill in with the apple mixture. Remvoe the sucepan from the heat & set aside to come to room temperature.
6. Continue with the dough
7. When the dough has risen enough, gently deflate it. Turn the dough out onto a lighlty floured work surface.
8. Dive the dough in half & set one half aside
9. Roll each half of dough, one a time, into a rectangle about 10″ x 12″.
10. Spread half of the apple filling onto the dough, leaving an 1/2″ empty boarder along all edges…I used an off-set spatula to spread the filling evenly onthe dough
11. Roll this up starting from the long side to make a filled log
12. Taking a sharp knife, cut this dough log in half & lay the 2 halves beside each other, cut die up…the filling will be visible
13. Now, join the 2 cut pieces together at one und & then twist the 2 half logs together with the filling side up
14. Place this on the prepared baking sheet.
15. Continue in the same manner with second log…
16. Now let the twists rise…cover loosly and let them rise for 1 to 2 hours, they should not be double in bluk, just puffy
17. Preheat oven to 350f towards the end of the rising time 
18. Baking the Twists
19. Bake the twists inthe preheated oven for about 30 – 35 minutes… until they are lightly browned … Check them after about 20 minutes…& if they are getting too brown you can tent them with alluminuim foil..but i didnt have todo that…The recipe on flourish says that when they are fully baked a digital thermometer inserted into the bread part of the loaf should be about 190f   Remove the twists form the oven & let cool completely before glazing & eating!
20. To Make the Glaze  Whisk all of the glaze ingredients together…the icing sugar, vanilla, salt & water

1. Glaze the twists when they are completely cool
2. TIP:  Glaze the twists  just before serving… so if you are going to freeze the twists or just serve them the following day…the glaze is nicer fresh …if you wrap the twists with the glaze it gets all over the wrap!
3. Slice to serve

Enjoy!

I thought I took pictures of the process of making this bread but if you want to see pictures go to  http://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/09/01/cinnamon-apple-twist-bread-bakealong/  They have great pictures1