Gubana cake

For this Christmas my blog-partner Jennifer and I decided to reinvent a few Italian festive recipes with the intent of making them a little bit lighter and healthier.
This dessert is part of the Italian festive-yet-healthy dishes we created.
Jennifer Cauli is a friend and a talented food & travel photographer who also comes from Italy. Together we joined forces to create a series of recipes (and pictures) that would use the typical Italian ingredients, but also have a contemporary and healthy twist.
We are very happy of our project and we hope to continue offering you great recipe ideas.

Cook Time: 30-40 minutes
Total Time: 1.30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE DOUGH
350 g strong bread flour
150 ml milk
80 g sugar
10 g instant yeast
1 medium egg
70 g butter, melted
Finely grated zest of one lemon
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped of seeds

FOR THE FILLING
150 grams raisins
70 ml marsala wine
20 ml honey
40 g peeled almonds
40 g walnuts
30 g hazelnuts
20 g pine nuts
10 g butter
1 lemon zest
2 g ground cinnamon
1 egg yolk for brushing

INSTRUCTIONS

To start soak the raisins in the marsala wine and set aside.

For the dough bring the butter outside the fridge to soften. Then in a large bowl or a mixer, if you have one, combine all the dry ingredients together except the salt. Add the egg and the butter, and keep mixing with your hands until everything is well incorporated. Pour in the milk a little at the time and keep kneading until you reach the right consistency. The dough should be smooth, firm but soft and elastic.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and set aside to rise in a warm place.

For the filling preheat the oven to 150 ºC and roast the almonds for 10minutes or until they become lightly coloured.

Blend the raisins in a food processor with the marsala wine, lemon zest, honey, sugar and ground cinnamon.

On a chopping board, crush the nuts lightly and add them to the filling mix.

Take a circular baking tray of about 18cm in diameter. Spread a little bit of butter all around the inside with your hands and lightly dust some flour with a fine sieve. This is to avoid the dough from sticking into the tin while cooking. A good trick I discovered some time ago is to use rice flour instead of wheat flour.

Now scatter some flour on a large flat surface where you will roll the dough with a rolling pin. The aim is to create a rectangular shape. Our rectangle was about a 48x25cm and about 4mm thick. With a knife or spatula spread the filling over the dough, leaving a small border all around.

Roll the dough up along the longest edge, you will obtain a long cylinder.

Then roll the cylinder around itself into a spiral shape and place in the baking tray.

Let rise in a warm place for about 2-3 hours or until it is doubled in size.

Brush with an egg yolk over the top and bake at 180 ºC for 30-40 min.

To check if the cake is ready, I suggest using a long skewer to poke the cake. If it comes out clean then it means your cake is ready.