The Sweet Loaf

When I'm faced with an onerous task my first instinct is to procrastinate. It's the ostrich in me that says if I ignore the problem, just maybe it will go away. That is why more than one of my term papers were written in the wee hours of the night, or morning, right before they were due.

I use psychology and say I've given over the task to my sub-conscious mind to work on so that when I get to the task, my mind will have already worked out all the kinks. Or that I'll be better able to face the task when I've had more sleep, more caffeine, or more chocolate. Or, the ever popular one, I work better under pressure.

In any case, I had a whole month to make this month's Baking Babes bread assignment but I put it off till zero hour, as per normal. Why? The lovely Monique of Living on Bread and Water picked this month's bread and it set my pulse racing to hear that it would be a sweet bread. Not just a sweet bread, but Sukerbolle or Sugar Loaf. Why would I procrastinate on making anything with a name like Sugar Loaf?

The original recipe we were given to work with was was an old recipe, the kind that's handed down by grandmothers without specific directions, and it was in metric. Metric is not my strong suit. Although I see the value of it, I really am more comfortable with my measuring cups and spoons. Plus the recipe had some ingredients that were a bit challenging to find. So, of course waiting until the weekend before the posting date was the logical course of action.


This beauty is a sweet dough into which is kneaded chunks of sugar with cinnamon baked into an out of this world sweet treat. After I made the bread my family hovered eagerly awaiting a slice. Oh my gosh it was good! I'd misjudged the time and temp so there was an uncooked dough mass in the center. It didn't matter. We wolfed the whole loaf down in an embarrassingly short period of time. As I bit into my moist, sweet piece, flecked with crunchy bits of sugar, dripping with butter, I thought, "Why did I wait so long to make this?" I'll certainly be making it again!

I changed up the recipe a bit, trying to write it down as I made it, trying to give both metric and English measurements. Sorry for those places where I didn't get both.

The sugar chunks I found at Sur La Table, but if you aren't able to locate them, you can partially crush sugar cubes with a rolling pin. You need to have large chunks so that they melt in the dough leaving pockets of sweetness. Delicious!


If you are unable to locate ginger syrup (which I don't think any of us in the US were), use this simple recipe to make your own. As a bonus, you get lots of candied ginger to play with!

Sukerbolle

500 grams or 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
10 grams or 2 tsp kosher salt
25 grams fresh yeast or 2 tsp active dried yeast
75 grams or 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
3 Tbsp ginger syrup
Lukewarm milk
150 grams sugar chunks
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder (more or less to taste)

1-In a large bowl stir together the flour, salt and yeast. (If you're using dry yeast, the rise time will be a bit longer.)

2- Pour the ginger syrup into a liquid measure and add enough milk to bring it to 200 ml (about 7/8 cup). Add this along with the melted butter and eggs to the flour. Stir together until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl.

3- Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead till smooth. The dough will be quite soft, but should not be sticky.

4- Put into a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise till doubled.

5- Turn the dough out onto the work surface, sprinkle the sugar chunks and cinnamon on it and work it through. Alternately, you can roll the dough into a rectangle, sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar and roll up the dough like a cinnamon bread loaf.

6- Roll the dough into a loaf shape and place in a well-greased bread pan. Sprinkle a little sugar on top. Cover and let rise for 15 minutes while your oven preheats to 350 deg. F. (I cooked mine for 30 minutes at 400 deg. F. and I think a longer bake at a lower temp would probably work better.)

7 - Bake for 45 minutes until brown and done. Turn out of loaf pan to cool. When you can resist no longer, slice up a piece and smother it with butter. I won't tell if you come back for seconds right away.


Be sure and check out how the other Bread Baking Babes fared with this fun challenge. And if you'd like to bake along and earn a Bread Baking Buddy badge for your blog, (say that three time fast!) you have a week to bake and post, then send the link to Monique.