Vanillicious.com – Easy Desserts

I once stayed at a pretty luxurious hotel and out of the amazing variety of morning cakes and pastries, I had a weakness to a relatively simple, not too sweet berry yeast pastry. It was so simple: a glazed yeast pastry baked with some berries on top of it. Luckily (or not), they didn’t have it every morning, so I could taste other great morning pastries they had. But this was definitely my favourite. Now that I master the art of making yeast dough, I had to use a little bit of imagination and create my own berry yeast pastry. And believe me, it didn’t require too much imagination or skills, because it’s that simple. Some notes:

• The amount of berries for the pastry is simply as many as you like it to be!
• Take the berries out of your freezer only when you’re about to use them. They have to be completely frozen when you stick it inside the dough, moments before you bake the pastry so they won’t mash when squeezed inside the dough.
• When working with a sweet yeast pastry, I sometimes dust my work surface with icing sugar rather than flour. There’ll be no complaints if the dough is just a little sweeter than it supposed to be (which is not too sweet anyway!).
• You can freeze the baked pastry and warm it up again in your oven when necessary.

You’ll need:

• 1 quantity of sweet yeast dough
• Frozen berries

For the Glaze:

• 30g butter
• 20g sugar
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• 1 tbsp cream
• 1 tsp lemon juice

How to:

Prepare the dough:

(1) Prepare the dough according to the instruction on the How to prepare a yeast dough post, steps 1-9

(2) Roll the dough into a cylinder, and divide into 2 uneven pieces (ratio should be approx. 1:3)

(3) Shape into two circles

(4) put each in a separate, greased bowl, cover with cling film

(5) Let rise in a warm place for 3-4 hours, or until the dough doubles itself

(6) once risen, flour a work surface and place the dough on it

(7) Use a rolling pin to shape the dough into circles the size of your tin

(8) use a wooden stick to make holes in the thiner circle. The size of the holes should match your berries size

(9) Place the thiner circle on top of the thicker one, set aside and prepare the glaze

Prepare the glaze:

(1) melt the butter in a small sauce pan

(2) Add the sugar, honey and cream and cook over a low-medium heat, until the sugar has dissolved

(3) Increase the heat, bring to the boil and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes

(4) Remove from the heat then add the lemon. Allow to cool A

Assemble the cake/pastry:

(1) Preheat the oven to 180c

(2) Back to the dough: stick the frozen berries into the holes on top of the combined dough. If they sticks out, use your finger to push it a little more into the dough

(3) Gently spread the glaze on top of the dough and berries

(4) Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the glazing is golden-brown

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