Bread Baking Babes; nutty as ever {Nut roll coffee cake}

The episode of August, in which:
*  the Babes bake a coffee cake,
*  the hostess bakes the coffee cake 3 times
*  we all are use different kinds of nuts
*  I am late.
But also ..
* I baked!
* although in order to do that I schlepped the risen dough by bike to a friends house and put it in her oven.
* Her oven bakes beautiful coffee cakes!
* One of her sons had a birthday party and even out on the terrace the smell of something delicious baking reached us
* Very happy to leave half of the coffee cake there in return.

What I can tell you about this one is that it’s surprisingly soft and tasty. Not dry. I always suspect coffee cakes are dry and hint of great flavours and never deliver… But that’s just me and coffee cakes, I never know where to place them in a Dutch house of taste/flavors. Does it belong to the cake/cookie range? It sure looks that way but it tastes too much of bread. Put it there then? With the regular breads? I don’t think so, no. My feeling is that a coffee cake would feel at ease in the company of “Suikerbrood” (Sugar loaf) or “Ontbijtkoek”; a treat to help you through the morning/afternoon. Not as substantial as a sandwich, not as luxurious as cake. Maybe as an extra in the lunchbox or at the lunch table/breakfast table during weekends?
This one consists of a brioche like dough (lots of butter, lots of egg yolks) which needs an overnight rest in the fridge to chill and firm up. The next day you use the eggwhites to whip up a meringue, fold in ground nuts. The dough is divided in two, each part rolled out and spread with the nutty meringue. Rolled up and placed in a bundt pan to rise.
Now that sounds not too difficult right?
Except
- that amount of butter in the dough…
- And the meringue in this kind of weather
- Ground nuts? Can’t buy so that is a DIY exercise
- Rolling up dough with meringue inside….

In comes Jamie, of Life’s a Feast, she picked the recipe, spelled out the recipe for us and proceeded to bake…  Fighting the dough with (or without?) all that butter, adjusting the flours for us (Yay Jamie! Spot on!). Then struggling with the meringue, sorting out how to roll and bake. And after all has been said and done manages to write a hilarious post accompanied by beautiful pictures. So that’s Jamie. Our August Kitchen of the Month.

I think I ground 200 gr toasted almonds, and used 2 tsp of cinnamon together with a meringue of 3 (or maybe 4?) can't remember... egg whites. Not sure what happened but my meringue wasn't as stiff as I like and so I had a little trouble rolling up. The dough however behaved beautifully, used the advised 390 grams et voila, a dough that came together, was soft but utterly pliable after it's night in the fridge! Resulting in a satisfyingly airy bread with just a hint of cinnamon. ( I think it could just use a little bit of oomph in that filling). Nice one this month!

I will refer to Jamie for the recipe in English! You too can bake along with us and be a Bread Baking Buddy. Simply bake this Cinnamon Nut Roll Coffee Cake, blog it – don’t forget to mention being a Bread Baking Buddy and link back to Jamies blog post! Then send the link (please include your name and your blog’s name) by August 26th to jamieannschler AT gmail DOT com with August Bread Baking Buddy in the subject line and Jamie will add you to the roundup.
Of course my fellow Babes have been baking; see how they did

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie
blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth
Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle
girlichef – Heather
Lucullian Delights - Ilva
Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya
My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna
Notitie Van Lien – Lien
Paulchens Foodblog – Astrid
Provecho Peru – Gretchen