Cardamom coffee cake with almond filling

(Picture) – to follow

flour, altogether 3 ¼ - 3 ½ cups
1 package active dry yeast
2/3 cup milk
6 Tbs butter or margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1 ts salt
1 egg + 1 yolk
½ to 1 ts ground cardamom


Heat the milk, butter, sugar and salt together in a cup. It should be still comfortably warm to your hand. Take a large bowl, put in it 1 ½ cup flour, cardamom, egg and yolk, and beat it with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes. Then add enough of the remaining flour to have a moderately stiff dough. Turn this out onto a floured surface and knead it for another 3-4 minutes. Now put it in a greased bowl and let it rise to double it original amount.

In the meantime prepare the filling:
½ cup almonds
½ cup sugar
1 ts cinnamon
1 egg white

Toast the almonds spread on a sheet of aluminum foil in a toaster oven. When cool enough to handle, grind it in a grinder or blender. Beat the whites to stiff, gradually adding the sugar. Then gently fold in the almonds and the cinnamon.

Now take off 1/3 to ½ of the dough. Roll out the rest into a 10x10 inches rectangle. Spread the filling over it, then roll it up jelly roll fashion. Make a ring and place it on a parchment lined sheet. Now make a rope out of the smaller ball of dough, wet the top of the large ring and form a ring on top of it with the rope. With a pair of scissors snip diagonally into the rope at regular (cca 2 inches) intervals, then twist these leaf shaped sections one outward, one inward, all around.

Let it rise again a little, then bake the cake at 375F for about 25 minutes. You can put some aluminum foil over it if the top seems to brown too quickly. When done, let it cool, then drizzle the icing over it.

Brown butter icing

Heat 2 Tbs unsweetened butter, stirring constantly, until it turns brown. When cool, gradually add 1 cup powder sugar, adding ½ ts vanilla and further easing it with drops of milk to get it to drizzling consistency. Now pour this by tablespoons over the top of the cake and let it dry.