SWEET TREATS

Sweet Saffron & Orange Pull-Apart Bread

This sweet Saffron pull-apart bread with almond paste, butter and orange zest is golden and crunchy on the outside, with pillowy soft and sweet layers inside.

3 hours

Serves 10-12

3 hours

Serves 10-12

A few weeks ago I had a little baking session with the kids. We made a large batch sweet saffron dough that I cut in four pieces so we all could do our own shapes. Elsa did braids, Isac did more traditional saffron rolls and Noah made little poops. I wanted to try a pull-apart bread idea that I pinned from Joy the Baker almost 10 years ago (!). So I rolled out the dough and filled it with a mix of butter, almond paste, orange zest and juice and raisins. It came out fantastic. The bitter orange zest combined with the sweet almond filling is the bomb. The good thing about baking it in a tin instead of individual rolls is that the bread stays moist and juicy for days. I've been trying the recipe a few times since then with varied results because our oven door leaked out heat (and then fell off!) but now I have tested it in two other ovens and feel very comfortable about the result. So, here it finally is!

A few notes:
– Don’t let a dark crust scare you. It's to ensure that it is baked through in the middle. The crumb will be golden and moist inside. And that dark vs golden contrast is beautiful!
– If you want to make a vegan version of this you can use this saffron bun recipe (with the vegan tweaks) as your base and replace the butter with coconut oil.
– You can reduce the amount of sugar if you want to keep it a little healthier, the almond paste makes it rather sweet anyway. Or replace the almond paste with any other filling of choice (almond butter and dates perhaps?)
– We haven't tried a gluten free version of this but you could try replacing the flour with a gluten free flour mix and psyllium husk. Or try any of our many other gluten free desserts like this butternut pumpkin bread or this gingerbread cake.

Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

Dough
75 g (5-6 tbsp) butter, plus a little extra for greasing
250 ml / 1 cup milk or oat milk
85 g sugar, (about 100 ml /1/2 cup)
1 g ground saffron (2 sachets), or 0.5 g strands saffron
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 egg, whisked
1/2 tsp salt
450 g / 3 cups / 7-8 dl flour, plus a little extra for dusting

Filling
150 g / 5 oz almond paste (buy or make your own)
Zest from 1 orange and juice from 1/2 (save the other half for the glaze)
75-100 g butter, room tempered
50 g / 100 ml / 1/3 cup raisins
A splash of plant milk, to brush the bread

Orange syrup
1 tablespoon boiling water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp orange juice

PREPARATION

Making the cake
1. Melt butter in a medium size saucepan, then add milk, sugar and saffron and heat to 37°C/100°F or lukewarm. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and add the yeast and a little bit of flour. Let it sit for a few minutes to activate the yeast (small bubbles will show). 
2. Add half of the flour along with the egg and salt. Stir around with a wooden spoon add the remaining flour and stir until it is thick enough to knead with your hands. Flip it out on a floured surface and knead it for a few minutes until you can form it into a round ball that doesn’t stick to your hands and that pushes back if you stick a finger into it. 
3. Wipe the bowl clean and place the dough back in it. Cover the bowl with a kitchen cloth and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until double in size and full of air pockets. 
4. Meanwhile, grate the almond paste into a bowl and stir together with the orange zest, juice and butter. 
5. Generously butter a bread/loaf pan/tin. 
6. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for a minute. Roll it out to a rectangle, roughly 35 cm x 55 cm and 0,5-1 cm thick. 
7. Spread the filling equally over the dough and sprinkle with raisins. 
8. Cut the dough into 8 strips. Stack two strips on top of each other (see images above). Cut each strip into 4 equal size squares roughly the same width as your loaf tin. 
9. Layer the dough squares upright in the loaf pan, don't cram them too much as they will rise a lot in the oven. Depending on the length of your pan you might even have a few squares left. Simply roll them up into individual buns and place in muffin tins. Leave to rest in a warm place for 30-40 minutes covered. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C / 375°F. 
10. Brush with plant milk (or egg wash) and bake for 40-45 minutes (the individual buns need max 20 minutes) until the top has a nice, dark, golden brown tone.
11. Make a quick syrup by dissolving the sugar with boiling water, squeeze the orange juice in and brush the loaf with it whilst its still warm. Let it cool for 15 minutes (or as long as you can resist), carefully run a knife round the edges, turn out and enjoy! 

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22 Comments

Joana
7 Feb ’21 at 19:37
Hi! Made this today and I'm super happy with the results! Used wholemeal flour, almond butter and darker raisins (availability adaptations!) and loved how light and fluffy and subtle-yet-orange-y it is! Loving it simple or with some cocoa hazelnut spread. Will also try with pistachio spread, guess it'll make some nice contrast. Thanks for sharing!
Reply
Meg
25 Jan ’21 at 21:58
I made this loaf yesterday and what a thing of beauty. The marriage of those ingredients is perfect and I love how the saffron flavour infuses the whole with this beautiful aroma - truly the stuff made for kings. This is one I'll be repeating again and again, I can already tell. Thank you for such a lovely, sunny recipe for these gloomy winter days.
Reply
Ana
2 Jan ’21 at 23:57
I absolutely can not, in good conscience, make this bread again. It's SO GOOD; in fact, too good. The entire bread was consumed in less time than it took to make it. By just 2 people. 2 carb loving, huge fans of your recipes people.
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Marre
2 Jan ’21 at 17:07
Amazing! I love the pull-apart concept, though it's very dangerous; just one more little slice, just one more..! = ) When it got a bit drier after a few days, I really liked eating it with a bit of greek yoghurt (as a spread). Replacing the dry yeast with 25 g fresh yeast worked out well.
Reply
Olga
23 Dec ’20 at 19:50
Oh my!! I just made this and ate my first piece. It is AMAZING. Thank you. Happy holidays!
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Olga
23 Dec ’20 at 19:51
P.S. I used "white spelt" flour and it worked perfectly.
Reply
Green Kitchen Stories
24 Dec ’20 at 00:42
Hi Olga, happy to hear! Happy holidays! /D
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Michaela Noack
23 Dec ’20 at 08:49
Hi you all😊, I baked the bread yesterday for a evening with our neighbours. One of them has to eat gluten-free and so I tried the recipe with gluten-free flour. It looks really tasty and was accept of being a bit dry very delicious. Next time I will bake with normal flour😊. Thanks for all the wonderful recipes all the time and a warm and cozy Christmasdays.
Reply
Mini
22 Dec ’20 at 06:31
I am a big fan of joy the bakers pull apart buns. The moment I saw this picture on your Instagram feed, I knew I had to try it. I did not have almond paste, so tried it with powdered almonds. My family loved it! The subtle flavor of saffron is just amazing. Never knew Saffron could be used in breads. So far we used them only for making saffron milk and in Biriyanis. Thank you for this amazing recipe!
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Eli
21 Dec ’20 at 11:19
Is it possible to do it with fresh yeast? If so how would measurements change? Thanks!
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Green Kitchen Stories
21 Dec ’20 at 15:18
Yes it is. I think the measurements might differ between various sorts of yeast but here in Sweden fresh yeast is sold in 50 g packages and for this bread you need half a package, so 25 g.
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Mariette
20 Dec ’20 at 21:28
Hello guys! I wanted to say so many thanks since a long time, I'm reading your blog for 3 or 4 years now, and am so happy to find healthy food recipes, especially for kids! Your way of thinking their meals is so imaginative and attracting, beside of being super healthy of course! It changed quite a lot my everyday cooking... Thank you so much for your work 😊 and by the way I'm looking for a recipe of Christmas Ginger men, do you have one by chance? Best wishes to all of you!
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Stephanie Kay Ulsh
20 Dec ’20 at 13:21
How much is grams to cups for the butter? Thank you..,
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Elda Bonora
20 Dec ’20 at 09:53
Jag vill gärna göra den gluten free, ska jag ta lika mycket glutenfri mjöl, 450 g ? och hur mycket psyllium husk?
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Green Kitchen Stories
20 Dec ’20 at 10:09
Jag tror det är ungefär samma mängd, med lite mindre och knåda degen sedan kan du tillföra mer och mer tills den inte är kladdig.
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Nancy
21 Dec ’20 at 02:45
Please translate to English.
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Hannah
19 Dec ’20 at 22:44
Wow! Is almond Paste = almond butter? Which kind of sugar did you use? I will try it soon! :-)
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Green Kitchen Stories
20 Dec ’20 at 00:11
Almond paste is basically equal almonds, sugar or maple syrup and egg white blended together into paste. It's a common supermarket ingredient here but you can easily make it in a food processor.
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Anna
13 Jan ’21 at 17:45
Hi! I'd like to try this. Recipes I found called for 1 egg white and 1 1/2 cups each of blanched almonds and confectioner's sugar. I'd like to try the maple syrup version but am not sure how much to use! Can you advise?
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Joana
7 Feb ’21 at 19:33
I don't think almond paste is that common where I live, so I used the same 150 gr of organic, creamy almond butter and it turned out great :) I just reduced a tad of butter on the filling, since the almond butter already provided some oil
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Ingrid Vatamanu
19 Dec ’20 at 16:12
What kind of flour did you use?
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Green Kitchen Stories
20 Dec ’20 at 00:13
All-purpose flour will keep them light and airy. But I have also tried them with spelt flour and with 1/3 whole grain flour. /David
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