Easter Tea Ring

Or in other words ... a Giant Chelsea Bun!

Personally, I prefer coffee with it :D but yeah, it's supposed to be a tea-time treat. "Tea" Ring ... duh. No tea in the ingredients either.

Another traditional Easter bake.

I'd made hot cross buns too early and am a little bored of them.... need variety, but still sticking to the Eastery mood.

Truth is, I'm never tired of having good, fresh bread. And we go through bread in this household real quick.

Feel free to substitute the filling with any dried fruit of your choice and top it off with some toasted almond flakes after drizzling with the icing. Had too many ideas but in the end, I decided to go plain and simple ... when there are too many choices .... go simple, rather than overdoing the flavors.

And once again, my beloved bread machine does the arm exercises for me.

INGREDIENTS

100 ml milk

1 egg

2 cups bread flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbs caster sugar

1 oz butter, softened

1 tsp instant dry yeast

1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped

1/3 cup sultanas

1/2 oz butter, melted

1/4 cup soft brown sugar / muscovado

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

milk for brushing

2 tbs icing sugar

1/2 tbs Grand Marnier / orange juice

METHOD

Put the milk and egg into the bread machine bin.

Add in flour, salt, caster sugar and softened butter.

Make a shallow hole in the center and put in the dry yeast.

Set the machine to the "dough" setting.

When the cycle is done, remove dough from bread bin and onto a floured surface.

Knock the dough back, then roll it out to a rectangle measuring about 30 X 45 cm.

Brush dough with melted butter and spread the copped fruits evenly over it.

Mix together the brown sugar and spices, and sprinkle evenly over the fruits.

Starting from the longer edge, roll up the dough as you would a swiss roll. Place rolled dough cut side down.

Turn the 2 ends around to meet and seal by brushing with a little milk, pinching the ends together. Place on a prepared baking sheet.

Using a sharp knife / scissors, cut through about 2/3 into the circle.

Twist the sections so that they lie sideways (I did that but somehow it straightened out all by itself ... wooo).

Cover the ring with plastic wrap and allow to rise for about an hour in a warm place or until almost doubled in size and puffy.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200ºC for about 20 mins. After about 15 mins into baking, cover with foil to prevent over browning.

Cool on wire rack.

While the bread is cooling and still warm, prepare the icing.

Mix together the icing sugar and orange juice or liquer until a drizzly consistency. If too watery, add more icing sugar, if too dry ... you figure it out.

Drizzle mixture over the bread ring. Leave to cool.

* If you're using almond flakes to decorate, sprinkle over before the icing sets.

Happy Easter!