This is a delicious yeast-based coffee cake that tastes like pastry. It’s great to serve any weekend guests and makes 2 beautiful cakes.
Pastry Cake:
1/2 cup warmed water
1 Tbsp. dry yeast
1/2 cup warmed milk
2 large, beaten eggs
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. grated orange rind (McCormick’s brand is great)
6 Tbsp. butter, softened
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
4-5 cups all-purpose flour
Add water to a large bowl then mix in the yeast; now mix in 1/2 cup of the flour and let this sit for 10 full minutes. Add the milk, sugar, orange, butter and salt and stir this well. Now add the the rest of the flour at 1 cup at a time until the dough becomes a shaggy-type blob of dough. Sprinkle some flour on the counter (not a lot) and plop the dough blob onto the counter. Knead it to form a smooth ball. Add more flour if you need to to keep the dough from sticking to your counter – just don’t add too much more. With cooking spray or a bit of melted butter or oil, grease a bowl (the one you just used is fine, just briefly wipe it out first) and place the dough ball in it. Turn the dough around so the whole thing is greased, then cover with plastic wrap. Place in a spot that’s free from drafts (top of the fridge works well) and let rise until doubled. This takes about 90 minutes.
While the bread is rising, make the Apricot-Almond Filling:
2 8 oz. boxes of dried apricots (Sun-Maid is good)
2 cups boiling water
2/3 cup white sugar
2 tsps. pure almond extract
Place the apricots into a medium bowl, then pour the boiling water of them. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap for 10 minutes – this will steam the apricots. Strain them and add to a blender or food processor then add the sugar and almond extract; pulse until it’s a thick puree.
Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Now punch down the dough then plop out of the bowl onto a lightly floured counter. Divide it into 2 pieces then jut briefly knead each piece to get the air bubbles out. Separately, roll each piece of dough into a large rectangle about 6″ wide x 15″ long. Spread 1/2 apricot filling on each rectangle – till about 1″ from the edges. Starting from the long side, roll each log tightly and place on the cookie sheets. On each separate sheet, join the end of the logs together to make a circle. Pinch the ends well to seal. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Let them sit for 10 minutes, then make several 1″ slashes in each cake. Let sit and rise again for 20 minutes. Bake for 25 minutes and cool at least 15 minutes before slicing.