Candy Cane Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups dairy sour cream
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
About 6 cups flour
1 ½ cups finely chopped dried apricots
1 ½ cups finely chopped maraschino cherries

Soft butter or margarine


Thin Icing: 2 cups powdered sugar mixed with 2 Tbls. water, ½ tsp. vanilla.

Directions:

Heat sour cream over low heat just until lukewarm. In large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in sour cream, 1/4 cups butter, sugar, salt, eggs and 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Knead until smooth, about 10 min. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, about 1 hour.

Heat oven to 375º. Punch down dough, divide into 3 equal parts. Roll each part into 15x6-inch rectangle; place on greased baking sheet. With scissors, make 2" cuts at ½" intervals on long sides of rectangles. Combine apricots and cherries; spread 1/3 of mixture down center of each rectangle. Crisscross strips over filling. Stretch dough to 22"; curve to form cane. Bake 15-20 min., or until golden brown; brush with butter; drizzle with Thin Icing. Decorate with cherry halves or pieces to resemble holly.