Everyone’s weekend needs a giant, fluffy iced bun with blueberry polka dots. # 261: Blueberry Lime Couronne

Yes, “couronne” means crown in French and yes this is supposed to have a neat twisting pattern and a visible hole in the middle. Mine took more of a *ahem* creative turn and chose a less traditional type of crown to emulate.

Think more velvet hat with jewels and less gold ring. In my defense, it was the correct shape before it’s second proof when it decided to puff up so much the center hole disappeared. I’ll take a fluffy soft crumb over a perfect shape any day!

It’s an enriched dough with butter, milk and sugar. Unlike a brioche, there aren’t any eggs in the mix and it needs less proofing time.

The soft, sweet dough is the perfect backdrop for whatever flavors strike yourself fancy. In addition to this bright zingy loaf, I also made one with cherries and dark chocolate chips. I had to argue with the cherries to get them to stay put, but it was worth it!

The sneakiest ingredient is a splash of almond extract. My kitchen smells soo good.

I swapped the lemon zest for lime and doubled the amount to try and squeeze a little more flavor into the dough. It gave it some fun freckles, but in the end the lime flavor came mostly from the lime juice glaze drizzled on top.

It was the Goldilocks of dough kneading – not too sticky and not too dry.

All tucked in.

Post-nap drama!

Yes please.

I cut the blueberries in half so they wouldn’t jump ship when I started shaping the filled dough. Isn’t it wacky how they aren’t blue all the way through?

You roll it up into a log and slice it in half so you can see all the layers. Twist the stripey dough layers together to get a pretty design.

I’m gonna try making it one time with no fruit to see if I can make the shape correctly. The fruit makes it slip and slide so much it doesn’t want to stay put! Maybe just the basic filling (how can you go wrong with whipped brown sugar butter?) or maybe a light sprinkling of chopped nuts or mini chocolate chips.

Tiny detour to the other loaf I made – aren’t the cherries so gorgeous?

Too much filling for pictures but just the right amount for eating.

Ok back to lime and blueberries!

The egg wash gives it such a lovely golden color.

A lime juice and powdered sugar glaze to up the zing a little.

Noms.

Happy munching!

Recipe mostly from: Crumb by Ruby Tandoh