Chocolate Frangipane Kugelhopf

This delicious loaf was inspired by the idea of a babka. It’s got a similar filling in an enriched dough, but it’s much easier to make as it shaped into a simple ring.

You could change the fillings to fruit, or jam or custard for instance, but who doesn’t like chocolate hazelnut spread with an almond frangipane paste?

And it does use a small quantity of sourdough starter, for flavour, but you could easily leave this out if you don’t have any on hand.

Ingredients

Dough

500g strong flour

7g instant yeast

10g salt

50g caster sugar

50g sourdough starter

275g milk

1 large free range egg beaten

50g butter

Frangipane

50g butter

50g sugar

60g ground almonds

1 large free range egg

1/2 teaspoon almond essence

150g chocolate hazelnut spread – store bought

Orange Drizzle

Juice of 1 orange

50g water

75g icing sugar

Method

For the dough, put all the dough ingredients except the butter into the bowl of an electric mixer such as a KitchenAid. Mix with a dough hook or wooden spoon to a rough dough, cover and leave for 30 minutes to autolyse.

Knead the dough using the dough hook of the electric mixer for about 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Add the butter, in small pieces, which needs to be very soft. You can soften the butter in the microwave. Mix using the dough hook until the dough is smooth, soft and windowpanes.

Cover the dough with cling wrap and leave to prove somewhere warm for 2-3 hours. The dough should have risen, if not quite doubled in size.

Make the frangipane filling while the dough is proving. Put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until all the ingredients are blended and smooth. You could also mix this by hand, it just takes a bit more work.

Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Remove the proven dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured board. Using floured hands, gently stretch the dough to a large rough rectangle.

Spread the frangipane over the rectangle, then the hazelnut chocolate spread on top of the frangipane.

Roll the dough up along the long side, then join the ends of the roll to make a circle. Move the ring to the baking tray.

Put the tray into a large plastic bag to prove. Place into the fridge overnight or for 8-12 hours.

Half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 160 degrees C fan or 180 degrees C non fan forced. Add a cast iron pan of water to the bottom of the oven to create steam for baking.

Take the tray out of the plastic bag and place in the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the Kugelhopf is golden brown but not burnt.

Once baked, remove from the oven.

To make the orange drizzle, mix the orange juice with the water and icing sugar. You may need more or less icing sugar – use enough to make an icing of dripping consistency.

Spoon the drizzle over the top of Kugelhopf.

Eat on the day – although the Kugelhopf will keep well as it so rich!