The magical light, bla bla bla and other text messages won’t stop me from feeling the Christmas spirit, they won’t keep me far away from the oven and great scents, they won’t keep me far away from the Christmas tree and I’m not going to lock the door on Christmas Eve either. This is precisely why (but not only) I started kneading cozonaci since yesterday. Until now I’ve made the family recipe, but this time I wanted to get out a bit, see what other people are doing and, especially, see if I can also do it. I could. I made two rather large cozonaci, really fluffy and light, flavored but no too sweet (we’ll get there). How exactly? This is how:
I put a kilogram of flour in a container. Over the flour I put an egg and two yolks. What you see in the spoon is coarse salt, a bit of ground nutmeg (it’s an interesting flavor but it’s not mandatory) and some safflower. I thought the safflower was a big deal, but it wasn’t. Maybe if it had been saffron, I would have obtained a deeper yellow color of the cozonac. I’ll try next time.
I also added the zest of a lemon and the zest of an orange.
I poured two tablespoons of oil. I used olive oil.
In the container I also put the yeast (12 grams) which I activated in a cup of milk with a bit of sugar. I put sugar, 5 tablespoons. I added half a liter of milk and started kneading. I kept kneading for about 20 minutes and then I left the dough to rest for about 10 minutes.
In a cup of milk I dissolved a pack of butter (250 grams). I poured the molten butter over the dough. Be careful, the dough doesn’t have to be hot, it will kill the yeast and the dough won’t rise. I kneaded for another 20 minutes and then I let the dough to rise. It doubled its volume in an hour.
I buttered a baking form.
I put the dough on the table (it’s soft, this is how it should be) and over it I sprinkles raisins and brown sugar. I thought brown sugar is sweeter, or at least it seemed that way to me. For this reason, when kneading I added just 5 tablespoons, when I should have added 7.
I left the cozonac in a tray, under a clean towel, for approximately a quarter of an hour, for it to finish rising. I then brushed whisked egg on it and put I into the oven. I kept it ther for an hour and a half, on low heat. The oven was pre-heated.
After I removed the cozonac from the oven, I left it under the towel, with the form and everything, until it cooled.
This is how I ended up taking photos at midnight.
The cozonac turned out good. The cozonaci, as I made two.
A slice of fluffy cozonac, a cup of milk – the perfect breakfast. Stay healthy!
Special thanks to
Oana Bodnariuc, Authorized Translator
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