A&S 50 Challenge : Project 3

Once the first blush of this wears off, I am going to have sad children (and boyfriend), but for now, the baking just keeps on going here in Solveig's Kitchen!

For today's project, I chose two sweet breads.  One is a Portugese recipe which contains dried currants and lemon juice, an interesting concept!  The dough, according to the recipe, is traditionally coiled and baked, called "caracois."  It can also be baked in a plain round loaf, or a braid, called "tranca a tricana."  Of course I opted for the braid and the coil!  The dough is a little softer than I expected, but it smells buttery and sweet when it comes out of the oven, and I'm looking forward to tearing into it tonight an A&S Sewing Circle (don't you wish YOU lived in Afonlyn? lol)

Here's the braid, before it went into the oven.  Notice the healthy slathering of butter!  And below, the coiled loaf, also liberally brushed with butter:

The loaves feel light to the touch, and smell divine!

The other recipe I chose is an Oat-Cinnamon swirl bread, except I abhor cinnamon (and besides, one of my Quality Assurance Engineers... err.. Shire members... is allergic, anyway, darn the luck) so I replaced the cinnamon sugar with a mace/ginger/clove mixture instead.  It's also a sweet dough, and you roll it out into a rectangle, butter the top, sprinkle the sugar mixture on top and roll it up, jellyroll style.  I added currants to that dough, as well (since I only had about 1/4 cup left, anyway), and I left one loaf intact, and turned the other into.... sweet rolls!  The house smells divine from the sweet breads rising and baking all afternoon!  Overall, today's baking has been a huge success and I can't wait for sewing circle to share these sweet treats with my A&S friends!