The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Eight — Solstice Bread
I love celebrating the Winter Solstice, which usually falls on December 21. That’s tomorrow, so put your 2020-acquired baking skills to good use and whip up a batch of this gorgeous sunny bread. Note: the first two pictures are from the recipe I got out of the newspaper, which called for Nutella as the filling. For Solstice, I’m going to use apricot jam for the filling, as that just reminds me of sunlight and warmth.
You’ll need: 3 or 4 cans of crescent roll dough, at room temperature; 2/3 c Nutella (or apricot jam); 1 1/2 t cinnamon; 1/2 c mini chocolate chips; 1/4 c powdered sugar; 1 T milk.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together the Nutella and cinnamon (or just plop some apricot jam in a bowl and stir it to get it to spreadiness. You could also probably sprinkle some cinnamon into the apricot jam, because why not?).
Form each can of crescent roll dough into a ball. Place on a lightly-floured board and roll into a circle. (If dough shrinks up, let rest 15 minutes.)
Place one dough circle on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gently spread one-third (or one-half, if using three dough circles) of the chocolate mixture over the dough, going up to 1/2 inch of the edge; sprinkle with one-third (or one-half) of the chocolate chips. Place another dough round on top, and repeat the process. End with a dough circle on top.
Now comes the fun part. Put a small glass in the middle, and make cuts all around the edges of the dough. It helps to make four cuts at east, west, north, and south, then cut each of those in half, and each of THOSE in half, until you have sixteen sections.
Remove the glass. Take two sections that are next to each other and twist away from each other two times, then pinch ends to seal. Repeat with remaining pairs of triangles.
It will look really cool when you’re done, I promise. Here’s the one I made today:
The directions say to bake for 40 minutes, but this was smelling and looking done at 30 minutes, so keep a good eye on it. When it’s done, make drizzle frosting with the powdered sugar and milk, and slather it on there so it looks pretty. And you’re done!
I made this one for a holiday get-together. This one had the Nutella in it, and it was magnificent. I can’t wait to make one for Solstice with apricot filling. If you’re lucky, I’ll even share!
I’ve got another present for you today! Nick Sarlo, of Shadow Hunters, is doing a storytime over on YouTube. Visit him at https://www.youtube.com/c/ShadowHuntersYouTubeSeries to find out which stories he’ll share from Spirits of Christmas.
And you should definitely head on over to http://www.weirddarkness.com, just to poke around over there and see what the Weird Darkness weirdos are up to today.
