Easter Tea Ring...five months early

A very early easter tea ring

Christmas is almost upon us but today in a break with festive tradition I made an Easter Tea Ring.  The seasons in Melbourne are somewhat out of sorts and the torrential downpour outside of the kitchen today only heightened my desire to be inside baking.  I cant believe I only have one more week left in the term before the long Christmas break over December and January.  I'm so excited to be going on holiday (our belated honeymoon to Tasmania) with David straight after Christmas but I will miss my weekly baking sessions at college.

The Easter Tea Ring is full of apricots, sultanas, sugar and spice.  The technique to turn the bread out from a ring into a circle of buns its an art form unto itself.  The method for producing the tea ring is quite similar to chelsea buns except the buns still stay attached to each other rather than being separated to bake.

After the tea ring is baked it is drizzled with white fondant and sprinkled with chopped pecans (almonds could be used).  The tea ring is quite solid when it is baked but soft on the inside, the sugar inside seeps out onto the baking paper and leaves a syrupy mess on the bottom of the bread.

I am gathering together recipes for Christmas goodies to bake and post back to England.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated.  I bought the recent edition of SBS Feast magazine which has some excellent recipes, I would like to attempt a nougat but I'm not sure how well it would post.