Thursday, April 16, 2015

Easter BBBabes

In this month we had the Easter time and very appropriate our Canadian Babe Elle ("Feeding my enthusiasms") chose a festive sweet bread for us to bake this month. I personally love these types of bread and it turned out very delicious. Thanks for this yummy recipe Elle!

I made some minor changes here and there, so the recipe below might be a little different than on the other Babe-Blogs. It was a slow riser this bread, but once in the oven it had nothing on its mind than "Spring" and very to the point this month. Ovenspring that is, the braid tore side ways in the middle which I cunningly hid under some icing sugar. 

The extreme ovenrise also resulted in a loose bread where the filling is, but the taste was just delicious! And you don't need to wait for next year's Easter either. Just bake along and become our Bread Baking Buddy. Send your results and details to Elle, she'll send you a Bread Baking Buddy Badge to add to your post (if you like) and you'll be part of the round up later too. So get your apron on and start kneading! Deadline 29th of this month.

Romanian Easter Braid
makes one loaf
(PRINT recipe)
500 g flour
1,5 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest (or use orange zest)
150 g milk
60 g unsalted butter
50 g sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
Filling:
70 g water
130 g soft brown sugar
200 g finely ground almonds (or walnuts, poppy seeds, etc)
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest (or use orange zest or 5 drops Fior di Sicilia)
1 tsp cinnamon
Glaze: 1 egg beaten with 2 Tbsp milk (optional: icing sugar with a little lemon juice to drizzle over after it has cooled and/or a dusting of icing sugar)
Combine 500 g flour, yeast and lemon zest in mixing bowl.
Heat milk, butter, sugar and salt until butter melts; remove from heat and let cool until it reaches 40º C. Add milk mixture add eggs to dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth - about 10 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turning to coat top. Cover; let rise in warm place until double - about 1 hour.
Punch down dough. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll each into a 18 x 40 cm rectangle.
Use 1/3 of filling one each rectangle, spreading filling, but leaving a margin around edges; roll up jelly-roll style. Seal seam and ends. You will have three filled and sealed ropes. Braid ropes and place on a baking sheet with baking parchmen). Cover with lightly greased plastic foil and let rise in warm place until doubled - about 30 minutes.


Make glaze and brush on the loaf. Bake in a preheated 180ºC oven for 40 minutes or until done. Cool on wire rack.
(adapted from: “The Festive Bread Book” -  Kathy Cutler)

Lien

5 comments:

Elle said...

Love that you made some changes, that you added the icing sugar icing and that you had such great oven spring! A lovely loaf. I see that you kept the yeast with the flour instead of heating it so hot in the milk mixture. Perfect!

Elizabeth said...

Your bread looks so beautiful, Lien! I love the light gold colour of the filling. Did you use almonds?

And it WAS slow rising, wasn't it? But what a fantastic spring in the oven!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Isn't it fun how sometimes everything seems different and other times things seem the same: slow rise - oh my yes! oven spring - oh boy oh boy was there ever!
Love your loaf and even can see why the sugar dripping would be good.

Katie Zeller said...

Even with the extra 'spring' your spring bread is gorgeous. Lovely job with the icing....

Nancy @ imadethisdish said...

Hi Lien,
Thanks for a great recipe. I can smell the aroma of citrus zest just looking at the picture. It looks delicious!
Usually my grandmother likes adding dry fruits too. It's so good having this warm with a spread of butter. Yum.