#IsolationBaking recipe for #Christmas is a scrumptious

Apple-Cranberry Coffee Cake Wreath

I’m not an expert at shaping dough into wreaths or much of anything else but this is a wonderfully delicious & rather festive wintry coffee cake.

A great weekend baking project.

👇

1/

INGREDIENTS for dough

¾ cup (200 ml) milk
¼ cup (50 ml) water
2 ¼ teaspoons (8 grams) active dry yeast
¼ cup (50 grams) sugar
¼ cup (60 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temp
1 egg
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon salt
3 ¼ - 3 ½ cups (485 – 520 grams) flour

👇
2/

INGREDIENTS for the filling *
4 pie apples, like Reine de Reinette or Golden, peeled, cored & cubed
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter
6 tablespoons brown sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cardamom

MORE

👇
3/

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp finely grated orange zest

Egg wash: I egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

You can increase the filling by using 5 apples and 1-½ cups cranberries; just be careful rolling it up to keep the filling inside the dough.

👇
4/

Make the dough:

Mix the water & milk together in a small saucepan & heat gently until warm, not hot. It should be the temperature of your hand when you test it.

Put the yeast in a large mixing bowl. Pour about ¼ cup (65 ml) of the warm liquid over the yeast and stir

👇
5/

to dissolve. Add the rest of the warm liquid.

Add the sugar, softened butter & the egg; stir the salt & cardamom into about 2 cups (300 grams) of the flour & add to the batter. Stir to blend then beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

Gradually stir in the rest

👇
6/

of the flour by hand until you have a smooth dough that’s easy to handle. I stir in all except about ¼ cup (@ 40 grams) which I used to flour the work surface as I knead the dough, thus working in this last amount of flour.

Knead for @ 5 minutes until smooth & elastic.

👇
7/

Place in a large lightly greased (vegetable oil) bowl, turning once to make sure the dough is greased. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap & then a clean kitchen towel & allow to rise in a warm, dry place until doubled in bulk, 1 hour to 1 ½ hours.

Makes the filling:

👇
8/

Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the brown sugar & cook, stirring, until you have a thick, grainy sauce, @ 1 minute. Add the apple cubes, tossing until all the slices are coated with the sugar-butter. Cook the apples for @ 4 minutes

👇
9/

& then add the cranberries, stirring to coat with the sugar/juice mixture. Continue cooking, stirring, until the apples are tender, the cranberries are popped & softened & the sauce has been reduced to a glaze, about 3 minutes more. Mix in the spices and the zest & toss

👇
10/

until the apples are evenly coated. Remove from the heat & cool the filling at least 30 minutes or while dough is rising before using to fill the coffee cake.

Punch down the dough & scrape it out of the bowl onto a floured work surface. Roll the dough out into a

👇
11/

15 x 9 inches (38 x 23 cm) rectangle. Spread the filling evenly over the rectangle of dough up until about ½ (1 cm) on the top – wide side – and 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) on the other three sides. Roll up tightly jelly-roll style starting on the wide side which should be

👇
12/

closest to you. Pinch edges of dough to seal, stretching the dough to even out the log. Gently lift the roll to a parchment-lined or greased baking sheet placing seam-side down. Shape the roll into a ring, pushing one end slightly into the other open end then pinching

👇
13/

closed to seal.

Using kitchen scissors snip slits into the deep into the dough being careful to evenly space the slits & creating an even number of sections. To form a wreath, cut down 2/3 of the way through the ring then turn each section onto its side alternating

👇
14/

the sections back & forth, towards & away from the center. Brush the dough with the egg wash.

Cover once again loosely with plastic wrap & a kitchen towel & let rise again until doubled, about 45 – 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Bake the coffee cake

👇
15/

until golden brown, 25 – 30 minutes, covering loosely with foil towards the end of the baking if you feel the cake is browning too quickly.

Once baked and cooled, sprinkle the coffee cake with powdered sugar or drizzle with white glaze (1 cup powdered sugar + 1-½

👇
16/

to 2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed orange juice until desired drizzling consistency.)

Questions? Just ask.

More from Food

**********
6TH ANNUAL
BULL CITY FOODRAISER
FINAL METRICS THREAD
**********


Going to fill this thread with the updated final numbers

Prior threads are here –

➡️ Foodraiser history thread:
https://t.co/Hz0jxFrswF

➡️ Initial 6th Annual data thread: https://t.co/XkK4oWE9iT

➡️ 6th Annual results photos + video thread:


You'll recall that we had to buy a sh*tload of grocery bags that were not included in our initial data thread

And then had to buy another sh*tload the next day 🤦‍♂️

Those paper bag runs added $386.94 to the expenditures ($193.47 x 2)

That put the grand total spent at $55,426.68:
➡️ $10 for cashier's check
➡️ $55,029.74 for food
➡️ $386.94 for bags

The Bag Fund donations exceeded what we needed though, so we capped 2020's #'s at actual expenditures and will hold the rest for 2021 (more on that down-thread)


Counting the new donors who contributed to The Bag Fund, and de-duplicating the folks who'd already donated to the main fundraiser, we ended up with 825 total donors
Friends. I would like to share my favorite food and drink discoveries from last year, many of which only came about because of the pandemic. Restaurants demonstrated their resilience and creativity month after month. Crappy photos courtesy of my phone. Long thread alert:

.@TheGreenZoneDC still serves some of the most interesting cocktails in D.C. To get them delivered, you have to purchase one food item. That's how I continued to fall in love with their muhammara (red pepper, walnut, and breadcrumb dip with pomegranate).
https://t.co/22lf4iRjib


.@SUSHITARO_DC shelled out for great to-go packaging worthy of what's inside. Like this tuna-only chirashi (tekka chirashi). https://t.co/U51mtcFWIn


.@BombayClubDC is becoming one of D.C.'s longest tenured restaurants. When you're really hungry and craving Indian, try their dinner tiffin with tandoori salmon, lasooni palak, dal makhani, lemon cashew rice, and naan. The lentils are so rich and smoky. https://t.co/r6GxIW64sJ


Whenever we celebrated a special occasion with a pair of friends in the backyard, we ordered a paella feast for four from @jaleo. Comes w/ a paella of choice, gazpacho, salad, bread, tortilla Española, and flan. You can keep the paella pan! https://t.co/LTnSBUi4nN

You May Also Like

1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
"I really want to break into Product Management"

make products.

"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."

Make Products.

"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."

MAKE PRODUCTS.

Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics –
https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.


There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.

You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.

But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.

And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.

They find their own way.