After a very long and hot and seemingly never-ending summer, things are finally starting to feel like fall around here. And as such, I made a very cozy wool bread stuffed with apples and cinnamon to share with you guys. But before I dive into this glutinous goodness, I wanted to let you know that my Photography + Styling + Branding Course is open for enrollment! And the last day to sign up is this Thursday (the 30th), so if you’re interested in creating breathtaking images, honing your visual voice, improving your creative skillset, and having fun doing it, hop on over and take a peek to see if it’s a fit for you! You have lifetime access to the course, the instructional videos are pre-recorded so you can go at your own pace, and there’s also live Q&A sessions with me on zoom every 2 weeks for the first 12 weeks of the course, too. It’s a great way to learn + immerse yourself in the creative community 🙂 I can’t wait to see you inside!

As for this bread, I found it while chain-watching a bunch of baking videos on youtube. This video in particular was the one that opened my eyes to the beautiful world of wool bread. While it looks like a very fancy bread when baked, the making of it is fairly straightforward. It’s just a yeasted enriched dough, stuffed with fruit or custard, and then rolled up and placed in a round pan to bake until nice and golden. You can get really creative with the fillings, and even do a savory one if you wanted to experiment with cheese and sun dried tomato (that’s what I’ve been mulling on, anyway. So many roma tomatoes from the garden this time of year!)

I have the written instructions to the best of my ability in the recipe, but when it comes to actually rolling out and shaping the dough, the wool bread video will be a much simpler way to make sure you’re rolling and cutting it properly. As a creative person, I tend to learn best by visual example rather than just reading written instructions, and this definitely applies to slightly delicate dough work. I hope this recipe helps you welcome autumn into your home, and fills it with the delightful smell of stewed apples, caramelized sugars, and fluffy fresh-baked bread.

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Wool Bread Stuffed with Apples and Cinnamon

Course Side Dish

Keyword bread

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 1 hour

Resting Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients

Apple Cinnamon Filling

• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound apples peeled, cored, and chopped into 1/4-inch cubes
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Wool Bread

• 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons lukewarm whole milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter softened

Egg Wash

• 1 egg whisked with 1 teaspoon milk

Instructions

Apple Cinnamon Filling

• Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over medium high heat and add the chopped apples, sugar, cinnamon, and salt and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook until the apples have released their juice, reduced in size and are lightly golden in color, about 12 to 18 min, stirring every 3 to 5 min or so, depending on the juiciness of the apples. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Wool Bread

• Mix together the flour, sugar, yeast, cinnamon and salt in an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment at medium speed. Reduce to low speed and add the egg and the milk and mix until dough begins forming. Switch to the dough hook attachment and mix at medium low speed until the dough forms a ball around the hook.
• Add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix for 1 minute after the first tablespoon until adding the second one. Mix at low speed with the dough hook until the dough comes together around the hook, pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl, and is no longer sticky, about 5 minutes more. If you're kneading by hand, doing by hand, it will be very messy and you may need to add another tablespoon of flour to help it come together. But stay kneading and it will eventually smooth out and come together, it will just take about 10 minutes of kneading.
• Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover it, and allow it to rise at room temperature out of direct sunlight until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
• Divide the dough into 5 equally sized pieces on a lightly floured surface. Form each into a ball, place on a clean surface, cover them all, and allow them to rise for 15 min at room temperature.
• Meanwhile, prep the baking pan. Grease an 8-inch springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper.
• To form the dough, watch this video before reading through the instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGw0GuSx3_c
• Roll out one ball of the dough into a rough oval that's about 10 inches long. Press down gently around the edges to keep it in place and prevent dough from shrinking back. Cut the dough into 1 cm thick strips on the lower half of the oval. Spread a small amount of filling evenly over the non-cut area. Starting at the end with the filling, roll up the oval. Once rolled, stuff an extra apple bit or two into each end to keep the ends of the roll full and not collapsing. Place the rolled dough along edge of the pan. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough until you have lined the entire edge of the pan with the rolled dough logs.
• Cover the pan with greased reusable wrap and allow the wool bread to rise for 1 hour. Halfway through rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• After rising, brush the exposed dough with the egg wash and bake until the bread is golden on top, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the springform pan. Allow to cool to warm, then slice and serve.