Romanian Cozonac

Cozonac Loaves: Rolled (front) and Braided (rear)

What? You've never heard of cozonac before? No worries. You're not alone!

Besides being one of the many who had suggested that I start a baking blog last week, my Analytic Mechanics lecturer, AG, also hinted that I should attempt to bake a traditional bread from his motherland. Cozonac is a seemingly well known festive bread that crawls out of ovens around Easter and Christmas in Eastern European countries including Romania and Bulgaria.

Cozonac is a sweet bread that can be made with a combination of raisins, lokum (Turkish Delight), oranges, lemons, walnuts, hazelnuts, vanilla, rum and so on. According to my trustworthy friend, Wikipedia, Romania has the most diverse variations of cozonac that significantly differ from region to region. Therefore, I feel justified in identifying this cozonac as being Romanian. Who says it can't be!



The recipe for the cozonac presented in this post is a slight variation of the one listed in Home Cooking in Montana. For more precise directions and useful tips, visit Montana's page. The recipe listed here is mainly used to track the variations employed during this run. Should cozonac be made once more, I would be interested in making a few small edits including grinding/hammering the walnuts more thoroughly and using the dough immediately once it has been prepared.

This recipe is enough for two loaves.

Nut Filling:

10 oz ground walnuts

1 cup 2% milk (as opposed to whole milk)

3/4 cup sugar

.5 oz rum and vanilla extract

1 tsp orange extract

2 TBS orange peel (as opposed to 1 TBS)

1/2 tsp ground French vanilla coffee beans 

1/4 cup cocoa powder

Bread Dough:

4 cups bread flour (as opposed to 5c)

1 cup milk

3 eggs

2 1/2 tsps instant yeast

3/4 cup of butter

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1 TBS orange peel

.5 oz vanilla extract

---

1 egg (used for egg wash)

Preparing the Nut Filling-

1. Pour milk and sugar into a sauce pan. Heat to dissolve sugar.
2. Once sugar is in solution pour ground walnuts into saucepan and heat and stir until it begins to thicken. 10-15 minutes.

3. 

   10oz of Ground Walnuts - Starring: Hammer and brand new  Kitchen Scale!!

   Add remaining flavorings to saucepan. The cocoa powder with thicken the filling rather well. Once it is paste-like, let it cool. It will thicken more as it cools. (It has been suggested that the paste-like nature prevents the bread from collapsing in the oven due to built up steam.) {Since (2) TBS seemed like a lot of orange peel, I went ahead and quartered the orange, removed the peel, pithed and minced it. See "Orange Extract" for more details.}

Preparing the Bread Dough-
Kindly prepared by my bread-making friend, QC

1. Pour butter, milk and sugar into a saucepan and heat to create a uniform consistency.
2. In a large bowl, mix yeast and (2) cups of flour before adding the wet ingredients.
3. Knead for several minutes before adding remaining flour and any forgotten ingredients.
4. Knead.
5. Keep kneading.
6. Once dough has been thoroughly kneaded, cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm environment to double size.
7. (Used 36-48 hours later after being refrigerated for some time. Next time, use immediately.)
8. Oil surface, split dough in half and roll out until 11x14
9. Spread room temperature filling to within a 1/2 inch of the edge and roll in whatever method is desired.
10. Butter parchment paper and apply to bottom of a normal sized bread pan. Insert rolled dough and paint the top of the loaf with egg wash.
11. Place in a warm environment (such as an oven) until size doubles once more.
12. Remove from oven, heat to 375F and reinsert to bake for 10 minutes.
13. After 10 minutes, lightly cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30+ minutes until golden brown all over.
14. Remove to cool for a few minutes. Remove from pan and cool loaves on side. Alternating position every now and then.

Fin!

The last slice of cozonac after being shared with QC and WL!!