Cranberry-Orange Filled Twist Loaf

• 360 g Bread flour
• 150 g Caster sugar
• 7 g Instant yeast
• ¾ tsp Fine sea salt
• 170 ml Whole milk
• 1 large Egg
• 65 g Unsalted butter, soft, room temperature
• 250 g Fresh cranberries
• 1 medium Orange, unwaxed

1. Reserve 10 g flour for shaping, 100 g sugar for the filling and 5 g butter for the tin. Mix the remaining 350 g flour and 50 g sugar with the yeast and salt in a large bowl, then warm the milk gently to about 35°C (95°F). Beat the egg and stir it into the flour mixture with the milk to form a rough dough.
2. Knead on a clean work surface for 5 minutes, then work in the remaining 60 g butter in three additions. Continue kneading for 8–10 minutes until smooth, elastic and slightly tacky, scraping the surface as needed without adding more flour.
3. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover and leave in a comfortably warm place for about 90 minutes until doubled in volume. Prepare and cool the fruit filling during this first rise.
4. Finely grate the orange zest and squeeze its juice into a 1.5 litre saucepan with the cranberries and reserved 100 g sugar. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 15–20 minutes, stirring and crushing the berries, until reduced to a thick spread that leaves a clear trail when stirred, yielding about 280 g. Transfer to a shallow heatproof dish and leave until completely cool before shaping, allowing about 40 minutes within the dough rising time.
5. Grease a 25 × 12 × 8 cm loaf tin with the reserved 5 g butter and line its base and long sides with baking paper. Using the reserved flour sparingly on the work surface and rolling pin, roll the risen dough into a 35 × 25 cm rectangle and spread the cold filling over it, leaving a 2 cm border. Roll up from a long edge into a log, pinch the seam closed, cut lengthways into two strands and twist them together twice with the cut faces upwards, then tuck the ends gently into the tin.
6. Cover the tin loosely and leave for about 75 minutes until the dough looks puffy and has risen roughly halfway again from its shaped size. A light fingertip impression in an exposed piece of dough should spring back slowly rather than disappearing immediately. Heat the oven to 180°C (355°F) during the final 20 minutes of this rise.
7. Bake on the lower-middle shelf for 40–45 minutes until deeply golden and a probe inserted into the bread beside a filling ribbon reaches about 94°C (200°F). Cover loosely with foil after 25 minutes if the exposed fruit and dough are browning too quickly.
8. Leave in the tin for 15 minutes, then lift out using the paper and cool on a wire rack for at least 45 minutes more. Cut into 12 slices with a serrated knife only once the centre has cooled, so the filling and crumb stay distinct.

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