Kozunak Easter Bread Bulgarian Food

BULGARIAN EASTER BREAD (KOZUNAK)

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.

BULGARIAN EASTER BREAD (KOZUNAK), FOR BREAD MACHINE

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.