Rectangle of dough

After cutting strips

Add fruit filling

The press-twist-press-next method

On the pan ready to bake

Okay, I got a lot of requests for this, here, and on Facebook, so here goes. Just warning you, it’s not super easy, but it’s not bad either, and it is worth it. It’s not healthy, but hey, it’s Christmas! Next year I may try to sub the sour cream with Greek yogurt, but we’ll see. And someone apparently helpfully took pictures, so I’ll add those too. 🙂

2 c. sour cream (I use light)
1/4 c. butter
2 pkg. yeast
1/2 c. warm water
1/3 c. sugar
2 t. salt
2 eggs
6 c. flour
1 1/2 c. dried apricots
1 1/2 c. maraschino cherries
powdered sugar
water

In a saucepan, heat sour cream with butter until the butter melts and it’s lukewarm. Dissolve the yeast in the water (make it a good yeast temperature). Mix together sour cream mixture, dissolved yeast, sugar, salt, eggs, and 2 c. of the flour. When combined, mix in another 3 1/2 c. flour. Turn onto a board and use the last 1/2 c. of flour to knead for 10 minutes (you may need a bit more). Put in greased bowl, cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour (I turn on my oven for a couple of minutes at the lowest setting and then TURN IT OFF and put the bowl in there – use a metal bowl). While it’s rising, chop the apricots and cherries together, reserving 14 cherries for garnish – this should be a rough chop. (I use my food processor. As a child I remember spending what seemed like DAYS chopping apricots. Add a little flour to the apricots to they don’t stick to the blade and do them separately or add the cherries later – cherries chop a lot faster and will turn to slush in about 3 pulses).

Take the dough out and divide it into 3 balls. Each ball will make one coffee cake. Roll a ball on a floured surface to about a 12″ x 16″ rectangle. Looking at it vertically, use scissors to cut strips from each side in about 1/3 of the way, leaving the center third whole (make sure you have the same number of strips on both sides). Spread 1/3 of the apricot/cherry mixture down the center. Take the two top strips, cross them over the fruit, press together and twist, and then press down onto the fruit. Continue all the way down, pressing the new twist over the last one, and sealing the final one at the bottom. Lift onto an ungreased baking sheet, stretching one end a bit and pulling it over into the shape of a candy cane. You can bake it now, or let it rise again for about 20-30 minutes and it will be puffier (my preference). Bake at 375 degrees about 15 minutes until it gets golden brown on top. Mix powdered sugar with a little water to make a glaze and drizzle on top. Cut 4-5 cherries in half and garnish (picture in the last post).

These freeze so well – since it make so much, I always bake one when we make them, and then freeze the other two for Christmas morning and New Year’s morning. Just freeze on the tray before the baking step, and once they are frozen, take them back out and wrap them well and put them back in the freezer. We take them out the night before and leave them on the counter, and they’re exactly ready to bake for breakfast. Hope you like them!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 2:06 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.