Polish poppy seed bread - just the prep side

I forgot to attach these photos yesterday about the prep I did for the poppy seed bread I made. I posted a recipe for this previously and I have varied it a bit - this time I used some whole almonds that I processed with the poppy seeds which I think added a good 'almondy' taste to the whole thing. I also added some almond extract along with the vanilla extract - it seems to have given it more punch in the final product. I used my basic sweet dough recipe but of course with some of my starter (I'll have to document that another day for you!) which had a bit of rye flour in it (you'll see brown flecks in the last photo). As you can see the poppy seed filling is very thick - this is more how I remember it being as a child. I think all we can ever do is approximate things from that era - as your tastes vary in life and you go on to taste/try different things so this sometimes becomes a bit distorted. I also cut back on the sugar as well which I think helped it be not too sweet.
This is rolling it up - which isn't a difficult thing to do if you've floured your counter properly
And here it is on the tray ready to proof and then go into the oven. I've learned to always use parchment paper on all my trays. It helps with the clean-up but it just ensures a consistent colour to the crust.

I didn't get a post-baking picture - which I forgot to take but mainly I was waiting for some media as I was using the internal memory and just didn't have any space left to take a picture. I did glaze the bread this time - with an egg yolk - no white and I found it to be a great tip for glazing. It came out with a much more lovely mahogany colour.

I also sprinkled it with some pearl sugar - not something that is found here in the UK but I got some from King Arthur Flour who will ship outside the US - you just have to call them and they'll send most items to you. I tend to do this with small items that really are just not available here - like their cinnamon, pearl sugar, baker's ammonia, etc. Apparently this is something you can find in Sweden and places like that but I've never seen it here.

OK - time to scoot and do other stuff. I'm sure I'll be posting more now with the new camera to take better pictures with. I'll have to see how I upload videos as well, since the camera will do that too. Oh the fun! Enjoy!