With Easter coming up, I started searching for something appropriate to the season to bake. I'd seen several Easter bread recipes, but most of them required raisins, other fruit, or a pail in which to bake the bread. It took a while to locate a good-sounding recipe which didn't require these kinds of special ingredients or supplies.
I found a likely-looking candidate at a blog entitled Baking Glory: an Easter bread apparently made in several Eastern European countries, including the author's native Romania. The braided bread recipe included a lot of butter and eggs, but what clinched it were the poppy seeds sprinkled on the top. (Which I actually had in my cupboard!)
Ingredients:
1 cup milk (I used dry milk plus the water required to make a cup.)
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup margarine (Butter and margarine? I could hardly wait.)
1 cup sugar
½ cup lukewarm water for yeast
2 teaspoons sugar, to mix with yeast
2 envelopes dry active yeast (about 1.5 Tablespoons of the yeast I use)
5 eggs
6 cups all purpose flour plus more for kneading (I think I ended up using 8 or 9)
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons salt
1 egg white, for egg wash
2 Tablespoons sesame or poppy seeds
First, combine the milk, butter, and margarine and either heat it on the stove until the fats melt or use the microwave to accomplish the same thing. I put it all in a 4-cup Pyrex container and microwaved it until everything was almost melted. Mix the 1 cup sugar in this mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.
While waiting for the milk mixture to cool, add the yeast to the lukewarm water and mix in the 2 teaspoons sugar. Allow this to sit for about 5 minutes, until you can see the yeast frothing up.
Beat the eggs. Slowly add the milk mixture to the eggs, beating as you go. If your milk mixture is cool enough, there is no real complication, but if it's a little warm, you run the risk of cooking bits and pieces of your eggs as you combine them. Beating as you add the mixture reduces this risk.
In my stand mixture, I put the baking powder, salt, and about 3 cups of the flour. I added the wet mixtures and mixed the whole together, adding more flour as I went. Because of the high quantity of fats and eggs, this dough behaved differently than most bread doughs, actually forming into something of a cohesive lump more quickly than some other doughs and sticking to the side of the bowl less readily. (Review about mixing a yeast bread in a stand mixer located here.)
After the dough was mixed, I greased the bowl and flipped the dough, covering it for its long rise. After a little over an hour, it had doubled in size and was ready to be punched down and risen again. (Yes, this recipe requires two rises before shaping.)
Finally, at long last, it was ready to be shaped! Divide the dough into four equal parts. (I used my kitchen scale to get as close to the same size as possible.) Working with one part at a time, shape the dough into a braided loaf, as follows.
First, divide the dough into three portions. Roll each portion into something resembling a snake, roughly a foot long. Recognizing that my "snakes" never look very good, I decided to try something else I'd read in a book. I flattened each of my snakes, then folded the top half to the center, and the bottom half to the center. Then I pinched the seam together rolled them slightly again, with the seam on the bottom. I think it made a better shape by the time I was finished with it.
Next step: braiding the bread on the greased baking sheets.
I did not take pictures of the actual braiding process, but I've already talked about how to make braided bread in my post about Norwegian Cardamom Braid.
After the braiding was complete, it was time to cover the loaves with damp paper towels and let them rise again until about doubled, roughly an hour.
After rising, I brushed the loaves with the egg wash and sprinkled those much-beloved poppy seeds on the loaves and took them to the oven, which had been preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. (Yes, this bread bakes at a slightly lower temperature.)
After about 30 minutes, the bread was ready to come out.
When I first took a bite of the finished product, I was slightly surprised to find the texture was so much different than the Norwegian Cardamom Braid. (Although, given that the recipe is substantially different in quantities of fats, etc., I'm not sure why I was surprised.) The crust was slightly reminiscent to me of a croissant--a somewhat flaky feel and buttery taste. The interior, also, was lighter and less cake-like than the other braid.
One thing was sure, however: it was fabulously delicious! My family ate two of the loaves within 24 hours, gave one away to another family, and froze the last to save for Easter. Hopefully it will taste as good when we thaw it.
