Apple Surprise

Camera 1

Okay, I want to start off on the right foot, let's be honest, it's really only a surprise, if nobody sees you make it.

With that out of the way, this is the best breakfast bread we've ever made. We make kick-ass bagels, fantastic bialys, and cinnamon rolls you'd do something you don't normally do for. What makes this bread better than those, is the easiness of the recipe. Bagels and cinnamon rolls are both at least (for the best flavor, and doing it the correct way) a two day process. Bialys come in a distant second, with still requiring, 3'ish hours to rise. The Apple Surprise starts as batter, thus, it doesn't take (metaphorically) forever.

The apples we used come from our organic, free range, grass fed apple tree that lives happily in our back yard. The apples are a great combo of tart and sweet, they are also on the firm side, which this recipe needs. The crumb topping is the usual (best part of anything), sweet, crunchy, and delicious, so one needs apples that are strong in flavor and structure to put up with the topping.

The best part of all things, the crumble topping

The actual bread portion of the loaf, is tasty as all get out. The batter is sweet (again, a strong apple is your friend), with 3/4 a cup of sugar to only 1 1/2 cup of (sifted) cake flour. With 2 egg yolks, 1 whole egg, 1/2 cup of sour cream, this isn't light and airy.

I know, I was supposed to be honest with you, so I feel bad for not telling you the truth. Yes, the recipe does in fact call for sour cream. We didn't use any. We had Greek yogurt. So, as MacGuyver would've done, we used the Greek yogurt. It turned out just as well!

Okay, so the "surprise", plop 1/2 to a smidge over 1/2 of the batter in the pan, nicely arrange the apples on the batter, pour in some of the topping, then cover with the remaining batter. It'll be a nice cross section look when it's cut into slices.


If you count the rings, you'll find the loaf is 10 minutes old

With so much going on in this bread, it doesn't need anything when serving, however I have been told that almond butter on a warmed slice, and a hot cup of coffee, can't be beat.