GF Bake Off: Apricot & Almond Plait

Ahh Bread Week.

As a coeliac, watching GBBO this week was slight …. torture. Oh to be able to have a “normal” piece of bread again which isn’t full of holes, doesn’t fall apart, and doesn’t cost twice as much yet come in slices half the size. I did particularly chuckle at the lines of “kneading the dough helps develop the gluten” ( NO THANKS!), and “testing if enough gluten’s been formed” (ANY amount of gluten is already too much if you ask me!)

Baking aside, I really do miss normal bread. It was a staple part of my diet pre-diagnosis and so far gluten free bread just doesn’t match the standard. It’s something I’ve decided I’ll just have to accept until I find the ULTIMATE freshly baked gluten free French bread stick (When I find it, I’ll be sure to let you all know don’t worry!)

Anyway, on to this weeks bake – I’m much more of a sweet than savoury person, so I decided to attempt a sweet bread of ‘Apricot and Almond Plait’

Ingredients

• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp yeast
• 100ml warm water
• 100ml warm milk
• 400g plain gf flour
• half teaspoon salt
• 50g butter
• 50g dried apricots
• 50g raising
• 30g ground almonds
• 1 egg
• 100g icing sugar
• 25g flaked almonds

Method

1. Warm the milk and water and dissolve the sugar in it
2. Sprinkle over the dried yeast and leave for 10 minutes to ‘froth up’
3. Sieve the flour, and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter to get fine crumbs
4. Add the apricots and almonds and mix well
5. Add the egg and pour in the yeast liquid and combine well
6. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead well (as pointed out earlier, kneading helps develop the gluten, which this recipe doesn’t have, but its still a good way of ensuring all the mixture is combined and the dough is smooth)
7. Cover the dough with a cloth and leave to prove for 5 minutes
8. Once proved, divide the dough into three and roll into long strips
9. Plait all three strips together and place on a floured baking tray to prove until it’s twice the original size
10. Preheat the over to 200 degrees
11. Once the bread has doubled in size, bake for 10 minutes,  then turn the temperature down to 180 degrees to bake for a further 20 minutes.
12. Once cooked, leave to cool on a wire rack whilst you make the icing mixture (add the icing sugar and a tablespoon of water into a small bowl until you form a runny icing)
13. Drizzle the icing over the top of the plait and decorate with flaked almonds