Poppy and Apricot Wreath

Dough:

1. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk. Dissolve butter over low heat. Sift the flour into a bowl and mix with the sugar, vanilla sugar and salt. Make a well in the middle, pour in the yeast milk and mix a little with the flour from the edge. Cover the bowl and place in the illuminated oven for 20 minutes. When the yeast has risen and formed bubbles, knead everything roughly with the dough hook of the hand mixer. Then pour in the melted butter and continue kneading until the dough turns smoothly away from the bowl wall. Cover the bowl again and place in the illuminated oven for 45 – 60 minutes. You want the dough to double in size.

Filling and topping:

1. Boil the apricots in the water until soft. That can take 30 minutes. Then let it cool down. Bring the milk to the boil. Put the ground poppy seeds in a larger bowl, mix with 6 – 7 tablespoons of the hot milk and allow to swell a little. Cook a porridge from the remaining milk, sugar and semolina and then mix it with the poppy seeds. Let cool down.
2. In the meantime, lift the soft apricots out of the liquid and cut into small pieces. Put one half aside for the poppy seed mixture and put the other half back into the stock (this should still be 200 ml after boiling). Bring the stock and apricot pieces with the preserving sugar to the boil again, gel and then allow to cool.
3. Now stir the egg yolks into the cooled poppy seed mixture. Beat egg whites until stiff. Then first fold in the rum aroma, almond sticks and apricot pieces and then fold in the egg whites.

Completion:

1. Preheat the oven to 175 ° convection. Roll out the dough on a large parchment paper or a lightly floured kitchen towel into a rectangle measuring 50 x 35 cm. Apply the poppy seed mixture thickly. On the narrow sides and the lower long side up to the edge. Leave approx. 4 -5 cm free on the 2nd upper long side. Then roll up everything from the lower long side with the help of the paper or cloth. The poppy seed mass always moves forward a little and at the end reaches to the upper edge. Since the filling is very soft, it is a bit “slimy” affair, but you can easily roll the roll from the paper or cloth onto the baking sheet lined with baking paper. The so-called seam should then be at the bottom. Then you push the two ends towards each other, and this creates a wreath. If it is a bit “bumpy” at the connection point, that is not a problem.
2. The surface of the dough is then cut into a wedge shape several times with scissors. The large hole in the middle is filled with the rest of the poppy seed mixture and a wreath of half of the apricots boiled down with the preserving sugar is placed around it. Avoid using the jelly and the other half of the apricots, they will be needed later.
3. Slide the tray into the oven on the 2nd rail from below. The baking time is initially 30 minutes at 175 ° and then a further 10-15 minutes at 150 °. When it’s golden brown in color, it’s done.
4. After taking it out, immediately coat the still warm wreath with the remaining, briefly warmed up apricots and the associated jelly and let it cool down well. In the meantime, mix the icing sugar and water into a thick icing and coat the wreath, which has cooled to lukewarm, thickly with it.
5. I still had some poppy seed mass left over and simply placed it in a small, elongated shape on the tray and baked it off. So there was something to snack on on the side ………….