Soft apple roll

I've been on a bread baking kick. After the scallion bread, I realized how much I enjoy kneading dough and the lovely aroma of the bread when it's baking. I turned to Pook from Daily Delicious because she has really great bread recipes on her blog. I decided to try the Soft apple roll because of the title of that post. It's "Soft Apple Roll: Soft bread for an easy afternoon". That title just painted such a wonderful picture in my head that I knew I wanted that easy afternoon for myself too.

The only thing I changed in the recipe is I cut the the dough into 9 pieces and baked it in a 8" square pan. The result is a wonderfully soft bread with a little sweetness from the apple chunks. It's a really nice roll, the perfect amount of sweetness. I really liked it. Here's the recipe.

Soft Apple Roll
adapted from Daily Delicious

For the bread:
160g Bread flour
40g Cake flour
6g Instant yeast
40g Sugar
2g Salt
10g Dried milk
10g Unsalted butter
1 Egg
80g Water

For the filling:
230g Apple (peeled and cut)
25g Sugar (see note)
1 tsp Lemon juice
100ml Water
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

For the egg wash:
1 egg + 1 tbsp water

For the Icing glaze:
Icing sugar (Powdered sugar)
water

Make the dough:
1. Put all the dry ingredient into the bowl, whisk to combine. Pour the water and egg into the bowl. Use large spoon (or pastry scraper) to mix everything together, and knead briefly to bring all the ingredients together.

2. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead, you will see the dough will be elastic after about 2 minutes. Add the butter (see note) and knead by using the heel of your hands to compress and push the dough away from you, then fold it back over itself. Give the dough a little turn and repeat. Put the weight of your body into the motion and get into a rhythm. Keep folding over and compressing the dough. Knead for 10-15 minutes or until the dough is soft, pliable, smooth and slightly shiny, almost satiny.

3. Put the dough into a light buttered bowl. Let the dough rise in a warm place until double in size (can be 1 hour or 1 hour and a half check often depend on the temperature). Meanwhile, make the filling (see below).

4. Brush an 8" square pan (see note) with butter. Roll the dough into 20x30 cm square. Spread the apple over the dough, then roll into the cylinder. Cut into 9 pieces and place into the prepared pan. Let the dough rise until almost double in size (about 20 to 30 minutes).

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the dough is ready, brush with egg wash, then put the dough into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown. Let the bread cool on the wire rack.

6. Mix the icing sugar with water and drizzle over the roll.

Make the filling:
1. Put all the ingredients into a small pan, bring to boil and reduce the heat.
Boil until most of the water almost evaporate, remove from the heat and let cool completely.

Notes:

• *The original recipe calls for 50 g of sugar for the apple filling. I decided to cut down on the sugar because I didn't want it too sweet.
• *When you start to knead the butter into the dough, it will fall apart and look like it's completely ruined. Don't worry, keep kneading the butter into the dough and the dough will come back together.
  
• *The original recipe calls for a 18cm round pan. I decided to use an 8" square pan and cut the dough into nine pieces instead of six.