Chocolate Filling

• 75g Fresh cream
• 150g Dark chocolate, finely chopped
• Icing sugar for dusting

1. Place the cream into a saucepan and bring to the boil, remove from the heat and add the chocolate.

2. Stir using a wooden spoon until the chocolate has melted. Set aside. Must be used while warm

The ferment

• 75g Strong bread flour
• 10g Instant dried yeast
• 150ml Milk (30°C)
• Good pinch of sugar

3. Place the flour, yeast and sugar into a mixing bowl. Stir together to combine all the ingredients.

4. Pour in the milk and using a wooden spoon stir all the ingredients together until a smooth batter has been achieved.

5. Cover the bowl and leave the mixture in a warm place to ferment for 20 minutes until it becomes a frothy spongy batter.

The creamed mixture

• 110g Softened butter
• 70g Castor sugar
• 1 Egg
• 2 Egg yolks

6. In a separate bowl and using a wooden spoon or whisk, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly add the eggs and eggs yolks beating between each addition, beat until light and fluffy. Set aside.

The final Dough

• 300g Strong bread flour
• 5 g Salt
• 1 Quantity of ferment
• 50g FreshLife Whole blanched almonds

7. Place into a large bowl the white flour, salt, the ferment and the creamed egg/sugar mixture.

8. Mix with your hand until the dough has formed a mass, then turn out onto a lightly floured bench and knead, the dough will seem sticky, don’t worry as it will firm up as you are kneading.

9. Don’t be tempted to add extra flour at this stage. This final kneading should take about 10 to 15 minutes, and the dough will be smooth, elastic and a little sticky.

10. Place the dough into a lightly oiled large bowl and cover. Give a bulk fermentation time of 45 minutes in a warm place (24-25ºC).

11. Grease your Kugelhopf mould with melted butter and lay the almonds in side.

12. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.

13. Flatten the dough piece on a lightly floured bench into a rectangular shape. Using a rolling pin roll the dough piece to an even rectangle shape of 45cm (width) x 25cm (length) and 5 mm in thickness.

14. This will take some time so be patient and allow the dough to relax for a few minutes when the rolling becomes difficult.

15. Using a palette knife spread the chocolate filling evenly over the dough, leaving a 1cm gap at the bottom edge. Lightly moisten this edge with water.

16. Starting at the top, roll the long edge downwards to form a swiss roll shape (as for Chelsea buns or pinwheels).

17. The length of the rolled Kugelhopf will depend on what size mould is used, so you might have to roll it a little. Join the two ends together to form a ring shape.

18. Cover the Kugelhopf with a sheet of plastic wrap and proof for approximately 1 hour in a warm place to almost double in size.

19. Place the mould directly into a preheated oven set at 180 -190ºC and bake for approximately 30 minutes. If the top surface becomes too dark, place a sheet of greaseproof paper on top during the final stages of baking.

20. Allow the Kugelhopf to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before tipping out onto a cooling wire rack and allow to cool.

21. Dust with icing sugar.