Easter Preparations

Yesterday it was time to make kozunak once more in preparation of Easter next week. I used my Mum's old trusty recipe, but with a couple of modifications, now that I've been to baking masterclass and also have read up on what the different ingredients do.

First of all, I used fresh yeast - 30 g.

Second, I held off the butter completely until after the dough had formed gluten.

Third, I also added half a deciliter of sugar for the poolish, in addition to the listed 2 dl sugar.

And fourth, I only used 900 g of strong flour.

I left the Kitchen Assistent to knead for about 10 minutes at which point the gluten seemed to have developed almost completely.

So I poured in the melted butter and grape seed oil mixture. Of course, the dough wouldn't just soak the fat up and the machine ended up just spinning. So I had to incorporate the fat by hand. That took another 10 minutes, but worked a treat and I didn't get too tired either.

The kitchen was a bit cool and so I left the dough to rise for 2.5 h. Actually I was playing a new computer game and forgot the time. Ahem.

The dough was ever so nice and soft and I divided it into two equal parts. From one half I made two plaits that I took in to work today. This turned out to be very popular indeed.

The other half I made a braid with five strands, which I've never done before so wanted to try out. There are plenty of videos on how to do that on youtube.



I barely managed to keep Lundulph away from it. It's now in the freezer to keep fresh for Easter Sunday when the rest of the family will come to visit.

A few further things that still require adjustment - try to reduce the mount of flour further and use more yeast, 50 g next time and also try adding the fat slowly, to see if the machine can incorporate it, rather than have to do it manually. Though of course if you're angry, kneading is a very good way to get rid of aggressions.