Traditional sweet Christmas bread

This week i made a traditional south-east European Christmas sweet bread. It is a very special recipe for me, one that my parents and grandparents made for Christmas, a recipe that awakens my childhood memories.

The sweet bread celebrates the joy and spirit of Christmas, made from an enriched dough and filled with a luscious cacao and walnut cream, when baked it fills the house with its sweet aroma.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 1kg flour
• 6 egg yolks
• 250 g sugar
• 450 g lukewarm milk
• 150 g dry apricots
• 100 g raisins
• 80 g dried plumbs
• 80 g dried cranberries
• 20 g yeast
• 100 g melted butter
• Zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon ginger powder’1 teaspoon of cardamom powder

Ingredients for the cream

• 6 egg whites
• 150 g sugar
• 100 g cacao
• 400 g walnuts

Procedure:

• Start the recipe by blooming the yeast. In a bowl add the dry yeast, sugar and lukewarm milk. Let the yeast activate for 10 minute or until is foamy.
• In another bowl start making the dough. Sift the flour and add the egg yolks to which we add a pinch of salt.
• Next, add the bloomed yeast, then the sugar, orange and lemon zest, ginger, and cardamom powder and at the end add lukewarm milk.
• Start mixing everything together until you get a dough, then with the help of your hands knead the dough and add the melted butter in stages to be incorporate into the dough.
• Add dry fruits to the dough and mix until they are even distributed into the dough.
• Let the dough proof in a warm place for about 2 hours or until double in size.
• The next step in our recipe is to make the cream. In a bowl mix the egg whites with sugar to rich the stage of stiff picks then add the cacao.
• Mix until the cacao is well incorporated in the egg whites then add the walnuts.
• Gently fold the walnuts into the mixture.
• After the dough have proofed divide the dough into 4 pieces.
• With the help of your hands stretch and pull the dough to get an even dough sheet.

Being an enriched dough its advisable to us your hands instead of the rolling pin. This way I keep as many air bubbles in the dough as possible.

• Add the cream on top and spread it evenly over the dough, then starting from the bottom roll the dough into a log. Repeat the procedure for the rest of the dough.
• Take 2 rolls of dough and put one on top of the other forming a X shape, then take the roll under over the roll on top and repeat until the roll is finished.
• Take the dough rolls and place it in a cake form.
• Place a glass in the middle for the sweet bread to keep its shape, then let it proof for another hour or until it’s double in size.
• With the help of a brush, whip egg over the sweet bread and sprinkle sesame seeds over the top.
• Bake for 1 hour at 160 Celsius.
• Enjoy with a cup of warm milk, tea, or hot chocolate.

Servings: 2 sweet breads

Total time: 4 h and 30 minutes.