I’m still having way too much fun messing around with the speed feature on imovie, so check out my instructional video below, and subscribe to my youtube channel for more! Full recipe at the bottom.
You guys, it’s been cloudy. Really cloudy. Little puddles of slush collect on curbs. It is dark when I creep out of the garage in the morning and seems to still be dark when I drag myself back in after school. The sky alternates between spitting little daggers of sleety darts and dripping icy drizzles into the gap between my collar and my neck. I rush to the window to seek out Vitamin D whenever the sun makes the effort to cast some anemic light on Indianapolis. So I feel like I need a little summer, right this very minute. (That shoddy Mame reference was for my high school choir director.)
This pastry ring masquerades as a bread, giving you every excuse you need to both pretend that it is adequate food for a full meal, and to smear copious amounts of butter, jelly, or icing all over it. It is in the shape of a crown, a shape popularly called a couronne. It’s easy to make, but it is pretentious enough to inspire sighs of admiration from your family or coworkers. It is also perfectly acceptable to hide this loaf in the pantry and keep it all to yourself. The dried pineapple, sweetened coconut, and a liberal dose of coconut rum will help you to close your eyes and imagine you are lying on a beach somewhere… and I know everyone could sure use a vacation right now. Teachers, think of this as a little spring break preview… because spring break is just. Like. So so far away.
I’ve been spending some stolen moments this week learning about various social media platforms from the original fount of expertise, my high school students. They have taught me all about tiktok, instagram, and twitter, leaving me feeling both deeply impressed by their technical skills and vaguely worried about the impact all of this social media exposure is having on them. However, let’s ignore that looming fear of the ongoing damage to the teenage psyche. Tiktok is helping me to connect to the youths and whatnot, and it makes me feel cool. I have exactly one video, and I feel incredibly fancy. Follow me (is that the right lingo?) at Kellylikes2bake!
I have also (with the help of my manfriend) been upping my game with the blog a little by dedicating an entire page to something truly important: my children (cats). Enjoy the photos. They are perfect in every way and they are supermodels. Another new and exciting change: my awesome friend Jordan designed me a new LOGO, and I love it. It has dots like Minnie Mouse, my idol.
Anyway, back to food:
Some ways to make this recipe easier or more interesting, according to your levels of motivation or taste:
- You can buy pre-made marzipan or leave it out altogether if it’s not your thing. To be honest I would totally buy it pre-made, but I have looked all over the classy meijer and it is nowhere to be found…so I make it homemade. It’s not too tough to make, and you can even just dump all the ingredients in the food processor if you want to skip the kneading.
- You can really use any kind of dried fruit in this bad boy. I have made a really similar bread with dried apricots and golden raisins, and I’ve been known to throw in dried mangos, dried bluberries, and whatever else I can find hiding behind the powdered sugar in my lazy susan.
- If you want to turn up the sweetness, use dried apples, soak with whiskey, and add hazelnut spread, hazelnuts, and chocolate chips to the filling. Yum.
- Feel free to top with an easy icing made with powdered sugar and a little milk. I was just lazy and hungry.
- If all you have is active dry yeast, do not despair! Just dissolve it in a little warm water with a little sugar and let it sit for ten minutes before adding to the dough. Instant yeast can just be added right to the dough.
Get in that kitchen! Get creative! Let me know in the comments how it works for you!
Pina Colada Couronne
For the filling:
- 90 g unsalted butter
- 70 g brown sugar
- 120 g dried pineapple
- 100 ml malibu rum
- 60 g dried cherries
- splash of orange juice
- 60 g pecans
- 35 g flour
- 60 gCoconut flakes
For the dough:
- 250 g strong white bread flour
- 10 g salt
- 1 packet instant yeast
- 50g unsalted butter, softened
- 105ml milk, warmed in the microwave for thirty seconds
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
For the marzipan:
- 200 g almond flour
- 175 g sugar
- 1 egg
- Coconut extract (optional)
The night before you would like to bake this loaf, combine the dried pineapple and cherries with the coconut rum and orange juice. Stir to combine, cover, and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, make the bread dough. It the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl if you want to make this by hand) put the bread flour. Do not substitute with all-purpose flour. Add the instant yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other. Add the softened butter and the egg. Mix on low in the stand mixer with the dough hook, and slowly stream in the warm milk. Let it work in the stand mixer until combined. It will start to pick up all the flour and bits from the side of the bowl. Dump it on a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic, about five to seven minutes. Resist the urge to add too much flour! Chuck it back in the bowl, cover, and leave to rise in a warm and cozy place for about an hour or until it is doubled in size.
Meanwhile, make the marzipan. Combine all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, and work until it is starting to stick together (see the video to get an idea for this stage.). Dump it on the counter and knead it lightly until it comes together. I like to form it into a cube because you are eventually going to roll it into a rectangle, but you can do a sphere too if that’s what is easier for you. Wrap the marzipan and chill in the fridge until you are ready to use it. You can make it a day ahead of time if you want.
Finish up your filling. Drain the fruit and rum mixture, discarding the liquid and putting the fruit back in the bowl. Add all of the other ingredients except the flour and work it until it is smooth and homogenous. Fold in the flour and mix it all up.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
When the dough is risen, it is time to build your couronne. It is easiest to see this process in the video above, but here are some directions:
- Roll out your marzipan into a large rectangle, finishing it on a large piece of parchment paper so that it is easy to move around. It doesn’t have to be perfect at all, it is going to be wrapped up in the bread, but you want it an even thickness throughout. Don’t worry if the edges are rough, that is the nature of the marzipan. Set it aside.
- Roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle that is slightly larger than your marzipan rectangle.
- Turn the parchment paper with the marzipan over on to the dough and peel the parchment paper off, leaving a layer of dough with a layer of marzipan on top.
- Spread out your dried fruit filling on top of the marzipan.
- Roll up the dough from the long end, making a long thin log.
- Cut the log like a pair of pants, leaving one end joined. Twist the two “pant legs” together, leaving the filling exposed. Shape the twist into a circle, cover, place on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet, and leave to rise another hour.
Bake the couronne for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees or until it reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees. If the filling starts to get too brown before it reaches this internal temp, just cover it with a little foil.
While the bread (pastry?) is still warm, brush with apricot jam, and decorate with sweetened coconut flakes and maraschino cherries. Once it is cool, feel free to add icing made with powdered sugar and enough milk to make a drizzly icing. Or, just eat it.
Stay safe out there. The sun will come out again some day, and until then we have to make our own summer in the kitchen.
YUMMY!