I sometimes look at Luisa Weiss' online (and still growing) collection of photos for recipes from Classic German Baking to get baking inspiration. And it provided me with exactly that as I was trying to find a recipe to take over to my cousin's house. The photo of the Nusszopf (a sweet yeasted braided loaf with hazelnut filling) looked so good that I decided to give it a try.
Weiss says this bread is still good the day after it's baked, so I made it the night before. While she directs you to mix and knead the dough by hand, I just let my Kitchenaid mixer and a dough hook do all of the work. I put all of the dough ingredients (flour, instant yeast, sugar, lemon zest, salt, milk, egg yolks, and room temperature high-fat butter) into the mixing bowl and used the dough hook to mix all of the ingredients and knead the dough until it was smooth. I let it rise for an hour before rolling it out into a rectangle. The dough was silky and easy to roll; it didn't stick or shrink.
The bread filling is a mixture of ground hazelnuts, chopped hazelnuts, sugar, milk, egg whites, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. The recipe says that the mixture "should be creamy but on the firm side." My filling was very runny, so I added a couple of tablespoons of bread crumbs as directed. It was still very loose but I didn't want to add more bread crumbs, so I just ran with it. I spread the filling onto the rectangle of dough, rolled it up, and crimped the seam shut. But because the filling was so runny a lot of it fell out of the two open ends of the roll. The problem only got worse as I cut the roll into three lengthwise strips, causing filling to pour out everywhere. I braided the strips together and did the best I could do keep the loaf neat, but there was hazelnut filling all over the place. There is no second proofing step, so I put the braided loaf right into the oven. (I would not have been able pick up the floppy and messy loaf. Fortunately I had rolled out the dough and braided it on a large piece of parchment paper; I just picked up the parchment paper and braided loaf together and moved them to my baking pan.)
I had to tent the bread with aluminum foil partway through baking to prevent it from getting too dark. Fortunately, the puddles of hazelnut filling that looked like a disaster when I put the loaf into the oven looked just fine after the loaf was baked. When the loaf was cool I drizzled on a glaze made from powdered sugar and lemon juice. The finished loaf was pretty; when I pulled it out of a plastic container at my cousin's house, everyone there whipped out their phones to take a picture. And I was happy to see how lovely the bread looked after it was sliced. You would never know what a runny mess this bread was before it was baked.
I have to admit that I did not take the time to toast my hazelnuts before I ground them (I had blanched hazelnuts, so I just used them as is). Sometimes I am just inexplicably lazy and will spend a few hours making a loaf of bread but still can't be bothered to take 10 minutes to toast the nuts first. My filing was therefore a dull khaki color, as opposed to the filling in Weiss' online photo, which is the dark brown color of a cinnamon roll swirl. But the bread was delicious regardless. I love hazelnuts and this bread does a wonderful job of showcasing them. The bread reminded me of an Entenmann's Danish twist cake (and I mean that as a compliment) because it had the texture and flavor of a classic diner coffee cake. But it was much better because of the elegant filling.
If I make this bread again I would probably reduce the amount of milk or hold back a little egg white from the filling so that it would be a little stiffer. I loved the texture of the the filling in the final product, but a non-trivial amount of filling went to waste as it seeped out during assembly. As messy as this was to make, it was totally worth it.
Recipe: "Nusszopf (Glazed Nut Braid)" from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss.
Weiss says this bread is still good the day after it's baked, so I made it the night before. While she directs you to mix and knead the dough by hand, I just let my Kitchenaid mixer and a dough hook do all of the work. I put all of the dough ingredients (flour, instant yeast, sugar, lemon zest, salt, milk, egg yolks, and room temperature high-fat butter) into the mixing bowl and used the dough hook to mix all of the ingredients and knead the dough until it was smooth. I let it rise for an hour before rolling it out into a rectangle. The dough was silky and easy to roll; it didn't stick or shrink.
The bread filling is a mixture of ground hazelnuts, chopped hazelnuts, sugar, milk, egg whites, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. The recipe says that the mixture "should be creamy but on the firm side." My filling was very runny, so I added a couple of tablespoons of bread crumbs as directed. It was still very loose but I didn't want to add more bread crumbs, so I just ran with it. I spread the filling onto the rectangle of dough, rolled it up, and crimped the seam shut. But because the filling was so runny a lot of it fell out of the two open ends of the roll. The problem only got worse as I cut the roll into three lengthwise strips, causing filling to pour out everywhere. I braided the strips together and did the best I could do keep the loaf neat, but there was hazelnut filling all over the place. There is no second proofing step, so I put the braided loaf right into the oven. (I would not have been able pick up the floppy and messy loaf. Fortunately I had rolled out the dough and braided it on a large piece of parchment paper; I just picked up the parchment paper and braided loaf together and moved them to my baking pan.)
If I make this bread again I would probably reduce the amount of milk or hold back a little egg white from the filling so that it would be a little stiffer. I loved the texture of the the filling in the final product, but a non-trivial amount of filling went to waste as it seeped out during assembly. As messy as this was to make, it was totally worth it.
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