Baked marzipan is one of my favourite things! where it leaks out and drips down to the bottom of the loaf and goes crispy, those bits are mine! i will literally fight you for them lol. I mixed some marzipan with some blood orange juice and some mahleb spice. it was the first time i had tried mahleb spice, it is so amazing it is made from the seeds of a certain cherry and smells like almonds. The colour from the blood orange and the marzipan makes the filling pink before its cooked. I love baking bread i find it really therapeutic, this is one of my new favourites, I love blood oranges they are so delicious, i wish the season was longer. I used orange juice as one of the liquids in the dough but feel free to use just milk, or use all orange juice and leave out the milk. 

recipe

dough recipe

• 3 and half cups strong white flour
• juice and zest from one orange
• 3 eggs
• 100ml milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 14g (2 sachet) fast action yeast
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1 tbsp. mahleb spice (optional)

filling

• juice and zest of 1 blood orange approx. 1/4 cup of juice
• 300g block of marzipan
• 2 tbsp. mahleb spice (optional)

in the bowl of a stand mixer add the flour, sugar and yeast then put the salt on the opposite side of the bowl with the malheb spice, add the orange juice, and eggs in a measuring jug then top up with milk until it gets to 300ml, (or you could use all milk instead of orange juice) then add it to the flour and add the zest. mix at high speed, adding a drop more milk if you need it until you have a manageable dough and knead for 5 minutes. oil a bowl and place the dough in it and cover and leave to rise for an hour or so until it has doubled in size. once risen tip it out onto a floured surface, knock the air out of the dough and roll out then cut into two long strips,

mix all the filling ingredients in a food processor to blend together then spread onto the dough. roll up lengthways into two long ropes then cut down the middle of each rope of dough then twist the two together and arrange on a baking sheet. leave to rise for 1 hour until doubled in size again.

preheat the oven to 180c

bake for 40 minutes or until baked through. then leave to cool

drizzle over icing made with icing sugar and blood orange juice and finish with some grate zest.