Festive Sourdough Braided Brioche Wreath

This gorgeous sourdough braided brioche wreath is worthy of any festive celebration. Sweet brioche dough filled with orange zest and raspberries and drizzled in an orange glaze. Does it get any more festive?

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Recipes

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 30

Proofing Time 12

Total Time 13

Servings people

Calories 540kcal

Ingredients

Brioche Dough

270 g All Purpose Flour
50 g Sourdough Starter can use discard - see notes for options
100 g Milk Full fat, room temp
1 Egg room temp (approx. 45g)
50 g Butter room temp
25 g Sugar
5 g Salt

Filling

50 g Fresh Raspberries (or blueberries or cranberries)
1 Orange (zest only - save the juice for the topping)
20 g Butter (softened at room temperature)
20 g Granulated Sugar

Toppings

Orange Juice (use the juice of the orange you zested above)
Powdered Sugar
100 g Fresh Raspberries (or blueberries or cranberries)
Flaked Almonds

Instructions

Add the sugar and milk together and mix until the sugar has dissolved into the milk. Make sure that the milk is room temp.
Add the sourdough starter (or discard plus yeast), flour and egg to the bowl and mix into a rough dough. Allow it to sit for 15 minutes.
Don't worry if the mix appears dry, it will soften up once you add the butter.
Now add the room temperature butter and salt and knead it into the dough until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Once the dough is smooth and pulling away from the sides of the bowl, set it aside to rise. You want the dough to rise around 50% at this stage.
Once the dough has risen, tip it out on a clean surface and shape it into a rectangle with the long edge facing you (just like when you make cinnamon rolls).
Take the soft butter and spread it over the rectangle, leaving a strip around an inch wide at the top with no butter.
Next, zest the orange over the butter and squish the raspberries over the top. The orange zest and the raspberry juice will mix together a little. Now sprinkle the granulated sugar over the whole lot.
Roll the dough up as tight as you can using the unbuttered edge to seal it. You should have a long roll of dough. Place the dough seam side down in a straight line on the counter.
Use a sharp knife or metal dough scraper to divide the dough roll in half length ways so you have two long pieces of dough. Don't drag the knife through the dough, cut it straight down so that you can see the layers of dough inside.
Now twist the two pieces around each other to form a long braided rope.
Form the rope into a wreath and gently push the ends together (don't worry too much if it's not neat as you can cover this with a ribbon after baking).
Leave the sourdough wreath to proof for a few hours - you want this brioche dough to be super soft and puffy before you bake.
When you are ready to bake your wreath, preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and bake the wreath for around 30 minutes or until it is golden brown. This burns easily so keep an eye on it.
While the sourdough wreath is baking, mix the orange juice and powdered sugar together to form a runny orange glaze. Set aside.
Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool. When you're read to serve, drizzle in the orange glaze and decorate with fresh raspberries and flaked almonds.

Notes

Sourdough Starter or Sourdough Discard - you can use active sourdough starter in this recipe. If you prefer to use discard, you need to add 7g of instant yeast to the dough when you mix it. This will decrease fermentation and rise times considerably, so you'll need to factor that into your baking timeline.

Nutrition