I continue to share recipes from our family cookbook. This recipe (calculated for 1 kg of flour) is most often used to make a kringle for the New Year or another large holiday with some guests. Products made from this dough do not become stale for a long time, and a large amount of spices, candied orange peel and raisins make it rich in taste and very soulful.
2 cups of milk (an American measuring cup of 250 ml will do);
60 g of yeast (or dry yeast for 1 kg of flour, usually about 14 g);
150–200 g of sugar;
200 g of butter;
1 kg of flour;
4 egg yolks;
1 teaspoon of salt;
as well as cardamom, zest, candied orange peel and raisins.
Rub the yeast with one teaspoon of sugar, add warm (no more than 40°C / 104°F) milk, approximately half of the flour, knead the liquid dough with a spoon, and put the resulting sponge in a warm place for 20 minutes. Dry yeast should be dissolved in milk with the specified amount of sugar. To the sponge, add egg yolks, beaten or crushed with the remaining sugar, cardamom, salt, and the remaining flour. Knead the dough (I use a Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker XL stand mixer), adding melted butter, until ready—it should come off hands or dishes, leaving no traces. If using candied orange peel, zest orraisins, add them after the butter.
Form a ball from the dough, cover tightly, and leave in a warm place until it doubles in size, then knead it again and leave it to rise again. From the ready dough, weave a kringle, challah, or wreath, let it sit for another half an hour, brush the top with egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C / 356°F for about 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160°C / 320°F and bake for another 30–40 minutes. Check for readiness with a wooden stick—if it comes out dry from the pie, it is ready. Slightly cooled kringle can be sprinkled with powdered sugar. From the freed egg whites, you can make meringues, or Pavlova cake—I have one version for sweet-and-coffee lovers and I will definitely share it sometime.
And now I want to tell you how to make an open pie with filling from this yeast dough. In my case, it will be a pie with rhubarb and apples, but apples themselves, pears, plums, and any not too watery fruits or berries will do.
For a form with a diameter of about 26 cm / 10 inches you will need half of the dough (calculated for 500 g of flour) without adding candied fruits, zest and raisins, approximately 500 g of rhubarb and one large apple (the proportions can be changed). For the filling, cut the rhubarb and apple into identical pieces about 1 cm wide and mix them with a small amount of sugar; I also add cinnamon. Spread the ready dough in the form with a layer of about 1.5 cm / ½ inches, put the filling on top, from the remaining dough, make a lattice, or cut out figures and put them on top of the filling. If you don't want to bother with this, you can make one small bun from the leftovers and bake it separately, or just prepare a little less dough, or take one larger or two slightly smaller forms.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C / 356°F for about 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 160°C / 320°F and bake for another about 50 minutes, checking the readiness in the middle of the pie. The more water in the filling, the longer the middle of the pie will bake. The finished pie can be sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Good luck and enjoy your meal!