Sugarbread cravings
In my childhood, I've always loved sugar bread. Usually, this was eaten only at special holidays, and a real treat. They were quite expensive I remember and therefore not something we'd have at home every week. For a few years now, I've been wanting to try and make my own sugar bread, but never really gave it a shot. Until now. And no, it didn't succeed the first attempt, you will see the pictures below in this post, and also why it went wrong, so you won't have to make the same mistake and can succeed the first time!
Let's get started!
The ingredients
For the dough:
- 350 grams of flour
- 7 grams of salt
- 10 grams of dry yeast
- 20 grams of white sugar
- 40 grams of butter at room temperature
- 40 ml of ginger syrup
- 165 ml milk, lukewarm
For the filling:
- 160 grams of pearl sugar
- 15 grams of butter (melted)
- a teaspoon of cinnamon
Other things needed:
- mixer with dough hooks (you can also knead with your hands)
- cake baking tin
- extra butter for the baking tin
- white sugar for the baking mold
- 25 grams of butter melted
Instructions for the preparations
There are quite a few steps to take, and it kind of confused me, especially with a little excited lady standing next to me. Make sure you follow all the instructions.
SPOILER ALERT: My first attempt failed miserably by following the instructions of someone, so I adjusted this so you won't have to make this mistake and throw away your baking tin! :-)
- Prep the filling before you start kneading the dough: mix the pearl sugar with the cinnamon in the melted butter.
- Mix all the ingredients for the dough and knead it well for at least 10 minutes. You can use a mixer here with dough hooks, or by hand, whatever you prefer.
- When you've kneaded for about 8 minutes, add the pearl sugar and mix it well.
- Now it's time to cover the bowl with the dough and place it where it's warm to let it rise for an hour.
After an hour it will be a lot bigger in size:
- Cut a piece of baking paper to cover your baking tin, and now start adding a layer of butter on the sides of the baking tin.
- Cover the sides with sugar and tap out the remaining sugar that doesn't stick to the sides.
- Once the hour has passed, take out the dough and carefully flatten it with your hands. Now roll up the dough so it fits in your baking tin.
- Cover this with plastic foil and leave it to rise for another hour.
That has risen well! I can totally see where this went wrong the last time! See the image below. :)
FUN FACT: I totally missed this little instruction the first attempt and my sugar bread went straight into the oven without rising for another hour (LOL). And on top of that, or actually at the bottom, ahum, I covered the bottom with butter and sugar as per instructions, which failed miserably:
See here my first attempt: a failed sugar bread and a baking tin ruined
Not how I remembered how a sugar bread should taste, nope! But we tried a few slices, the next day it was all hard and dry and I threw it in the bin. Usually, I wouldn't do this too quickly, but I just had to admit that this attempt failed miserably. I decided that I would make another one the next day after buying a new baking tin. Which eventually took me weeks to find one. But I thought it was funny to share both the failed sugar bread as well as the one that was delicious!
I have to admit, that where possible, I did use the process pictures of the first attempt as it always takes so much time to capture the process and I wanted to make it easier on myself the second attempt. Therefore you may notice a different baking tin in the process pictures. :)
Baking instructions
Again, I have to admit, that by default I place my bakings in the middle of the oven. This was no different when placing the sugar bread in the oven. Meaning within 2 minutes I realized I did something wrong, and had to move the tin down which was already getting quite hot with a pre-heated oven. But lesson learned, I shall check the instructions better next time! :)
Preheat the oven at 200 degrees Celcius.
Put a rack in the bottom of the oven and place the baking tin on the rack.
Now bake the bread for 35-45 minutes until it's gold-brown. If you see the top get too dark, cover it with some aluminum foil to avoid it getting too hard on the top.
Let the bread cool off in the tin.
Put some melted butter on top of the bread and let the bread cool off before eating!
Looks good, doesn't it? Now it needs to cool off, and it's evening here already so we won't eat it until tomorrow. Tip: put some real butter on the slices when eating it, that's delicious!
Thanks for stopping by.. and bon appetit!