Apple braid bun untied!

On days when I'm feeling uninspired/ demotivated, I find it "lifting" to either go out for a run or do some shopping (even if it's just a walk to the supermarket) or have something sweet to nibble on. Its not that I am easily depressed judging by the amount of dessert-ing or shopping I do. My life is 99% perfect but as usual, life's not too perfect. Aside for the dreaded assignments and horrid moments, life's been pretty good to me;)

However, today's post is not about shopping or a restaurant/cafe review. Its about de-stressing the less-expensive way: Baking sweets!!:D

I have always had a love hate relationship with apples. I love to cook them but I dislike it when the final outcome does not match my expectations. A few weeks ago, I've baked an apple braid bun (using the cinnamon roll recipe here) and have cooked the apples the way I usually like them with; melted butter marinated with brown sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon juice). Although I have tried to improve my bread making technique, I still need to have more practice to master this skill!

Moist dough = good!

Syrup-ed apples with extra syrup to drench them in!

The braiding part was definitely a challenge. The dough needs to be thin enough so that the filling is proportional with the baked bread layer.

Egg wash

I had extra dough so I decided to make some chocolate swirls!:)

Apple juice leaking out from the dough

Baked!

Not the most proportional piece I have made so far but it sure did smell pretty darn good when it came out fresh from the oven;)

And last but not least, a few random pictures of what I have been up to recently;)