From Star Baker
to baking star

A stunning, delicious chocolate and hazelnut tear and share loaf. If you don’t have a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread handy, you could use jam or marmalade. You can even make a savoury version with a pesto and feta cheese filling. In fact, you can fill it with anything you like as long as it’s not too wet. It looks complicated but is actually very easy to do. I would usually make the dough and prove it overnight in the fridge for improved flavour, before finishing the loaf the next day. But you can make it all in one day if you prefer.

Makes 1 star bread

Time required: 60 minutes preparation and two proves.
Baking time: 20–25 minutes

Optimum oven position and setting: centre and no fan, with a baking stone

• Essential equipment:
• A kitchen mixer fitted with a dough hook
• A baking sheet; mine is aluminium and measures 38 x 32cm.
• Non-stick baking parchment
• A large bag to put the baking sheet into for proving

• Ingredients:
• 135ml boiling water
• 135ml whole milk
• 500g strong white
• bread flour
• 14g instant yeast
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 2 medium eggs
• 100g soft unsalted butter
• rapeseed oil, for greasing
• 2 tbsp smooth apricot jam
• For the filling
• 200g chocolate hazelnut spread
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 75g chopped roasted hazelnuts

Method

Add the boiling water to the milk to give you a warm liquid. Place the flour, yeast, salt and eggs in the bowl of a kitchen mixer fitted with a dough hook. When adding the yeast and salt, place them at opposite sides of the bowl. Add two-thirds of the liquid and begin to mix it all together. Add more liquid gradually until all the dry ingredients are picked up and you have a soft dough. You may not need all of the liquid.

Mix for about 8 minutes. You will work through the wet stage and eventually end up with a smooth, soft, silky dough. With the mixer still on, gradually add the butter in thumb-size pieces until it is all incorporated and the dough is smooth and shiny.

Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough in it. Cover it with clingfilm or a shower cap and leave it on one side until doubled in size. Depending on your room temperature, this can take 1 hour, but it’ll be fine for 2 hours.

Find the largest round plate you have that will fit completely on your baking sheet.

When the dough has proved, tip it out onto a lightly floured surface (I use rice flour). Fold the dough over on itself several times to knock the air out of it. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Roll out one half of the dough on a piece of non-stick baking parchment into a circle just a little larger than your plate. Place the plate on the dough and trim around it with a knife.

To make the filling, place the chocolate spread in a heatproof bowl. Warm it gently in a microwave to make it runny. Using a palette knife, spread it evenly over the dough, leaving about 1cm bare all around the edge. Sprinkle over the orange zest and 50g of the chopped hazelnuts.
(You could also sprinkle any other finely chopped nuts or dried fruit of your choice.)

Roll out the other half of the dough on a lightly floured surface and trim to the same size circle. Carefully place it over the chocolate-covered dough and press to seal around the edges.

Get a small bowl with a diameter of about 12cm and make a light imprint in the centre of the dough circle. Using a sharp knife, cut 16 equally spaced slices up to the circle imprint. The easy way to do that is to cut four evenly spaced, then another four in between those and so on. Gently lift each slice, spin over twice and lay back down. This will give you the amazing pattern. Twisting in one direction only will give you the pattern depicted in the photograph on page 110. Twisting each alternate section in opposite directions will give you the pattern depicted on page 111.

Slide the whole thing onto the baking sheet. Place the baking sheet inside a large bag to prove. Make sure the bag doesn’t touch the dough. Prove again for about an hour until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200°C fan/220°C/ 390°F/gas 7. Place your rack just below the centre of the oven. Bake the bread for about 20–25 minutes until golden.

Warm the apricot jam and brush it over the hot bread to glaze it. Sprinkle some chopped hazelnuts in the centre circle of the loaf – use a pastry cutter to sprinkle into and get a perfect circle of nuts. Eat warm or cold.

These mini cakes are great bite size treats. The sponge is beautifully light and has the crunch from the passion fruit seeds. The white chocolate icing adds to the sweetness and gives it a lovely finish.

• For the cakes
• 130 gms – unsalted softened butter
• 130 gms – caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 130 gms – self raising flour
• 30 gms – ground almond
• pulp of 1 passion fruit
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• For the icing
• 50 gms – unsalted melted butter
• 150 gms – icing sugar
• 2 tsp milk
• 50 gms – white chocolate, melted
• pulp of 1 passion fruit

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 12 hole mini cake tin.

In a large bowl put all the cake ingredients together and whisk it for 2 minutes until light and pale. Put equal amounts of the cake mix into the 12 holes of the cake tin. Bake for 15 minutes and once baked leave the cakes to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin.

Melt the butter in a small bowl. Add the sifted icing sugar in it and mix it well until smooth. To this add the melted chocolate, milk and mix well. Now add the pulp of passion fruit and give it a good mix.

Once the cakes have cooled completely put 1 tbsp of the icing on each of the cakes and serve.

Enjoy them fresh but if you have any left store them in an airtight box and eat them within 3-4 days.