Bulgarian Easter Bread Kozunak Recipes

Steps:

• Mix first five ingredients (yeast, small amount sugar, salt, one egg, warm milk) in a large bowl.
• Cover and leave in a warm place for 40 minutes.
• Put raisins in rum to cover, and set aside to soak.
• Grate and juice the lemons.
• Set aside.
• Sift 4 of the five pounds of flour onto a large tray or other work surface.
• (You can estimate- does not need to be precise.).
• Melt butter and combine with oil.
• Heat 2 cups of milk and sugar on low in a small saucepan until warm.
• Separate 4 of the eggs; set aside the yolks for brushing.
• Beat the whites with the other 7 eggs.
• Add a handful of the flour from the work surface to the warm yeast mixture.
• Bit by bit, mix in with a spoon the rest of the flour, the milk mixture, the beaten eggs and the butter/oil mixture.
• When most of it is together, mix in the lemon juice and zest, and the vanilla.
• Adding more flour to the work surface if necessary, dump out the dough and knead until it holds together well.
• Let the dough rest in a warm place until double in bulk (1-2 hours).
• You may need to divide between two bowls.
• Punch down and knead the dough.
• Drain the raisins and dredge in flour.
• Work about half of them into the dough as you knead, a few at a time.
• Let the dough sit and rise again (another 1-2 hours).
• Preheat oven to 425 (400 if your oven runs hot).
• Punch down and knead again.
• Divide the dough into 8 parts.
• Each of these, divide into three parts; roll them long and braid into a single loaf.
• While braiding, work the remainder of the raisins between the strands.
• Brush the loaves with the reserved egg yolk and stud the top with nuts.
• Bake the loaves about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
• (We usually did about 3 loaves at a time.) You can also use the dough to make smaller rolls, if you prefer; bake for proportionally less time.

Steps:

• Set the raisins to soak in the rum; I put them in a mug. I sometimes microwave 30 seconds to speed the process.
• Zest the lemon. Coarser is preferable, although I'm not about to give up my microplane.
• Juice HALF of the lemon.
• Add the zest, the juice of half the lemon, and all other ingredients (EXCEPT the raisins, rum, and nuts) to your bread machine, in the order specified by the manufacturer. I worried about the lemon juice curdling the milk, but it seems to work ok.
• Run the dough cycle on the bread machine. Add the drained raisins when it is time to include the add-ins. If your dough cycle has no add-in part of the cycle, do not add the raisins; work them into the dough later.
• Remove the dough and divide into two parts. For each part, divide in three; roll out into braidable strands and braid. If you didn't add the raisins earlier, work them into the dough and between the strands as you braid.
• Stud the two loaves with almonds.
• Let rise on a greased baking sheet in a warm place until about doubled in size. Preheat oven to 375.
• I bake for 20 minutes, glaze with sugar water (1/4 c sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water), and bake 5 minutes more. You may prefer an egg glaze or something else. the total baking time should be about 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the loaf is cooked through.

Steps:

• Sift the flour in a really large container or pot. You'll be adding all of the ingredients here.
• In the middle of the flour you clear a well to add the rest of the ingredients.
• Dissolve the yeast in a 3/4 full cup of warm milk (100 degrees Fahrenheit) with a spoonful of sugar for proofing it. Keep it in a warm place until it starts rising.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together 5 of the eggs (save 1 egg for the glaze), remaining milk, sugar, lemon zest, vanilla extract and cognac.
• After the yeast has doubled or tripled in volume, add it to the well in the flour along with the egg mixture.
• Mix all the ingredients together using a wooden spoon until it's all really well blended.
• Heat up the butter. Dab your fingers in the butter and start kneading the dough together, gradually adding more and more butter to it.
• You need to really knead this dough, stretch it out, add some butter and fold it in two or three times. Then repeat. Every few times, fold it into a ball and pound it on the table. By the end you should have a really smooth dough that doesn't stick to your hands and has small bubbles of air.
• Sprinkle some flour on top and put the dough in a bowl in a warm place for it to rise (double in volume).
• The dough should rise within 2 hours. If you have more time you can also put the bowl in the fridge and let it rise overnight. The low temperatures slow down the yeast so by doing that you're extending the rise time to 8-9 hours.
• After it has doubled in size, you once again heat up some butter and start breaking small balls from the dough and kneading it again. If you'd like to add raisins, walnuts or turkish delight, mix the pieces in during this stage.
• Divide the dough into two main parts, then divide each part into 3 balls. Stretch out the balls to turn them into long round strips. You'll use them to braid the dough.
• Stick together the tops of the three strips and braid the bread just like you make a hair braid. You should end up with a nice braid with 4 segments on each side.
• Tuck the last part of the braid underneath itself and place the whole thing in a buttered and floured loaf form. Repeat for the second loaf.
• Let the bread rise in the form a second time by covering it with a towel and letting it stay in a warm place. This should take an hour.
• Separate the yolk of the last egg and whisk with a tablespoon of water. Glaze the top of the breads, then sprinkle with the decorating sugar.
• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out without any dough sticking to it. If the top starts browning too soon, cover with foil.