Spice cake wreath

Ingredients for 12 servings:

• 200 g gingerbread hearts, filled (noble bittersweet)
• 250 g butter or margarine
• 250 g sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
• 4 m.-sized eggs
• 500 g flour (wheat flour)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp cinnamon, ground
• 3 pinches of clove(s), ground
• 1 small jar applesauce
• 200 g apricot jam, for apricoting
• 100 ml orange juice, for soaking
• 150 g semi-sweet chocolate coating
• Sweets (jelly oranges)
• 20 g hazelnuts, roasted, sliced

Instructions

Working time approx. 35 minutes; Rest time approx. 10 hours; Total time approx. 10 hours 35 minutes

For the dough, finely chop the gingerbread hearts. Beat the butter or margarine with a hand mixer fitted with a whisk on high speed until smooth. Gradually stir in the sugar and vanilla sugar, stirring until the mixture forms a thick batter. Gradually stir in the eggs (about 1/2 minute for each egg). Mix the flour with the baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves, sift, and stir in portions on medium speed. Stir in the applesauce and chopped gingerbread hearts. Pour the batter into a 26cm diameter, greased springform pan and smooth the surface. Place the pan on the oven rack. Top/bottom heat: about 180°C Fan: about 160°C Gas mark 2-3 Baking time: about 50 mins After baking, let the cake stand in the pan for 10 minutes. To apricotize, strain the jam through a sieve and heat it in a saucepan. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack, pierce tightly with a skewer, immediately saturate with orange juice, and spread thickly with the hot jam. Let the cake cool. For the glaze, coarsely chop the chocolate coating and stir it in a small saucepan over low heat in a bain-marie until smooth. If desired, cover half of a few jelly oranges with the glaze and place on baking paper. Cover the cake with the remaining glaze; immediately sprinkle with hazelnuts and garnish with the jelly oranges. Allow the glaze to set. Tip: The spice cake wreath will be nice and moist if you let it sit for 1-2 days. If desired, garnish the wreath with filled gingerbread hearts instead of the jelly oranges.