This was one of their recent bakealong recipes (where you can join in and everyone tries the same recipe each month) and it was soooo good. It’s like autumn in one soft, carby bite. And one of the best things is that it makes 2 loaves, #score. I ended up veering from the path a bit and made one sweet and one savory. Keep reading to see what I ended up with (spoiler alert: you’ll want both.) One of the secret ingredients in this bread is potato! You can use potato flour, or did what we did and use unflavored potato flakes. This gives the bread a super soft texture. Gotta go with those Idaho potatoes, obviously.
You’ll form a “shaggy” dough and let it rest for a little bit. What’s a shaggy dough? Well look at the texture, and compare it to the photo after this. See how this is all bumpy? That’s a shaggy dough.
After kneading and mixing it will become smooth and elastic. Oh, dough. It’s so beautiful!
The filling of this dough is basically apple pie filling, made super quick in a saute pan.
It becomes thickened and sweet and delicious.
Now, here’s the one change I made change from the recipe. This amount of apple filling is for 2 loaves and I thought that didn’t seem like enough so I put it ALL in one loaf, haha. You could leave it as written, or go nuts like I did. In the end I thought the apple flavor and texture was amazing. I liked it doubled like this but I think it would be totally fine as written as well. I do think going extra heavy on the filling like I did might hinder the rise a bit, but it tasted sooo good that I’d probably do it again. To be clear- the recipe as written is the original. If you want extra filling like I did, you’ll need to double the filling in the recipe!
So basically you are going to roll this up like you would for cinnamon rolls and then cut it right down the center like the the photo below, on the left. Then you’ll gently turn your big long pieces so the open cuts are on the top, like the photo below on the right. Remember mine has twice as much filling as normal (if yours looks different).
Then you’ll carefully take those 2 pieces, keeping the cut sides up, and twist them, tucking in the ends.
You get this gorgeous braided look! You’re so fancy!
Now since I used up all my filling in one loaf, I decided to fill my other loaf with something different. I had some left over Roasted Tomato Sauce in my fridge so I spread that on and sprinkled on some cheese and drizzled with Garlic Olive Oil before baking. SO many possibilities with this great dough recipe and fun braiding method.
But back to apple pie flavors…. You’ll just let your braids rise and then bake them up. There are even instructions if you’d like to make this a day ahead and then bake fresh in the morning. This would be so perfect for a holiday breakfast or just a lazy weekend treat.
It gets a drizzle of icing and then oh my gosh. Eat some warm, for sure. It has those rolling ribbons of apple cinnamon filling and that sweet glaze that just melts in your mouth. The bread is so soft it’s just perfect. I LOVE recipes that make more than one loaf, too. This is great for sharing, or for devouring one asap and saving one for later!
And can we just re-visit my Italian version? When this cheese and tomato one came out of the oven I drizzled it with pesto.
PERFECTION, I tell ya. So great along side a pot of soup on a chilly fall day. These are both fabulous and I hope you try it!
