Butterkuchen: Baked butter bread

Baking is sharing, I really believe it ^^. When I started baking, I always made small batch of cake, bread or etc. as it would be less waste, haha. most of the time it's a disaster than something we could eat.

 Looking back at that time, the moment that I could really bake something edible is so far away. But with my family's patience, now I can bake them the thing that they want to eat and bake for other people too. When I go to church on Sunday, I love to bring my bake goods with me, it makes me happy when people eat it and smile. It's a reason why I had to bake 2 batches of this bread, haha. 
The texture of this bread is between bread and cookie, it's not so fluffy but not too hard and as the name suggests (Butterkuchen is German means "Baked butter"), it has a load of butter both in the dough and on the topping. 
It's easier to knead large amount of dough in a stand mixer, but it's not hard to hand knead too. With a lot of butter, you need to be sure that the dough is fully mixed (no flour particle to be seen), before adding the butter, or the dough won't be smooth.
Serve this lovely baked butter with a cup of coffee is the best for me, the sweet and richness goes very well with it. ^^

 Butterkuchen

25x25cm pan

Bread
250g ......................................... All purpose flour
50g ........................................... Granulated sugar
4g ............................................. Instant yeast
1/2tsp ....................................... Lemon zest
4g ............................................. Salt
120g ......................................... Milk
40g ........................................... Egg yolks
50g ........................................... Unsalted butter

Topping
50g ............................................ Unsalted butter
50g ............................................ Granulated sugar
50g ............................................ Almond sliced
................................................... Pinch of salt

* I made double batches. 

 Put flour, instant yeast, granulated sugar and lemon zest in a bowl of a stand mixer, whisk to combine, put salt into the bowl, whisk to combine.

 Pour milk and egg yolks into the bowl.

 Mix with dough hook at low speed until all the flour is fully mixed.
Put butter into the bowl, mix at medium low speed until fully mixed.

 Continue until the dough come away from the side of the bowl.

 Remove the dough from the bowl and knead lightly until it smooth. 
Lightly brush a bowl with butter, place the dough into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Let the dough rise for 1 hour or until double in size (depend on the temperature).

 When the dough is ready. Prepare your working space.

Line 25x25cm pan with baking paper. 
Remove the dough from the bowl.
Roll the dough until 25x25 cm in size (or a bit smaller you can press it again when you put it in a pan.

 Place the dough in a pan.
Dock the dough ( I use a tip of a spoon handle).
Brush the dough with the butter.

 Mix the sugar with a pinch of salt.
Sprinkle half of the sugar mixture over the dough.
Sprinkle the almond slices over the sugar.
Sprinkle the rest of the sugar and follow by the rest of the almond slices.
Let the dough rise until almost double in size, about 40 minutes.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190C.

When the dough is ready, bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven, let it cool for 10 minutes.
Remove from the pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack.
After the bread cool, cut into pieces.

Butterkuchen: Baked butter bread