Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread

It's very fluffy, soft, fragrant - it is eaten like this: "Let's taste a slice - mmm, delicious - I take another one as if it ran too fast on my neck - on the 3rd slice - well and what if, such a goodness goes eaten another slice .. "- and that's how you wake up that you ate half a cake!

Warning, it is dangerously good! But I recommend it with confidence, it is the best food ever and of course it will be the basic dessert at the Easter or Christmas table.

Ingredients
White flour
1 kg
Bakers yeast
50 g
Sugar
250 g
+ 100g for the walnut filling
Cow milk
550 ml
is perfect to take 3.5% fat milk
Melted butter/oil
200 g
I mixed melted butter with oil
Egg
5 pieces
I put the yolks in the dough, the egg whites for the filling + plus 1 yolk to grease the cakes
Salt
0.5 tsp
Food flavours
2 tbsp
you can use vanilla, orange peel and lemon, rum, etc
Chopped walnuts
350 g
Cacao powder
4 tbsp
optional
Step by step
Step 1

We prepare the ingredients for the dough:

The milk is mixed with sugar and vanilla and heated a little on the stove - the brownest thing on top is pure vanilla powder, meaning not the essence but even the natural, ground. We'll talk about vanilla later in other posts.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 1
Step 2

Sift the flour (warm, at room temperature) into a larger bowl, so that you can knead the dough at will.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 2
Step 3

In a smaller bowl, mix 1 glass of warm milk from step 1 with the yeast (be careful not to be hot, as you "kill" the yeast). Then add 3-4 tablespoons of flour and mix once more.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 3
Step 4

Make a hole in the flour and pour the yeast mixture there.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 4
Step 5

Gently take the flour from the sides with your fingers and sprinkle over the yeast mayonnaise - be careful what the surface of the flour looks like. Leave it for 15-30 minutes and see in the next step what is happening.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 5
Step 6

This is what it looks like after 15-20 minutes - this means that the yeast works, grows, so a first step for the perfect cake is over.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 6
Step 7

Until the mayonnaise grows, you can mix 5 egg yolks with salt, orange peel and lemon.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 7
Step 8

And here we have the ingredients ready to start the basic kneading of the cake - flour with yeast mayonnaise, warm milk mixture, egg yolks and melted butter mixed with oil.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 8
Step 9

In the bowl with flour and yeast add the yolks and the rest of the milk.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 9
Step 10

Mix all the ingredients with your hands or a spoon, until the dough is a little thick.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 10
Step 11

Then, with your hands, make it a little and you see now that we are at the beginning of the most important stage of preparing the cake - MIXING - yes, you know that we do not go through this step at all.

Soak your hands a little in the fat mixture (butter and oil) and beat well - on all sides, for about 20-30 minutes. Don't give up easily, you have to somehow burn in advance the calories you eat from the cake later :) So periodically soak your hands in fat and continue with growth.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 11
Step 12

And after 10-15 minutes you notice that the dough becomes soft, elastic and very pleasant - but you don't give up, you still beat it for about 10 minutes.

And after all this, cover the dough with a towel or food foil, put it in a warm place and let it rise for about an hour and a half.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 12
Step 13

This is how the dough grows after an hour and a half.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 13
Step 14

As the dough grows, don't forget to prepare the filling - beat the egg whites hard, add a little sugar at the end, about half a glass.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 14
Step 15

To this mixture add the chopped walnuts, mix well and we have the simplest and most delicious filling for the cake.

But you can use whatever you like - poppy seeds, shit, etc.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 15
Step 16

Let's go back to the nicely raised dough - carefully remove the foil from it and place it carefully on a table well greased with oil.

If you want 2 large cakes, cut the dough into 2 parts - one for each cake. You still know the method.

Here I tell you how I made, my cakes were medium, I made 2 cakes from half of the dough plus another baking from the rest of the dough.

So I took 1/4 of the prepared dough, I spread a piece of dough with my hands on the table greased with oil - give it a rectangular shape and be about 1 cm thick.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 16
Step 17

Put the filling over the dough, about 1 cm thick and that. Spread it lightly with a spoon.

In the Video recipe I made the filling denser and it was much easier to work with the cozonacs. I was able to shape the cakes from 2 rolls.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 17
Step 18

Roll the cake. To make a bigger cake you should roll 2 such rolls.

That's how I left it, I made a smaller cake.

See the Video Recipe how I modeled 2 big cakes and Babani.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 18
Step 19

Place the cake in a rectangular tray lined with baking paper and let it rise for another 60-90 minutes.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 19
Step 20

Here my cakes raised, before putting them in the oven I greased them with egg yolk.

Put them in the oven at an average temperature of 180 degrees for about an hour.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 20
Step 21

If you notice that they brown too much ahead of time, place an aluminum foil on top of them, directly in the oven.

When they are ready, take them out of the oven and leave them in the pan for about 15 minutes. Then take them out with the paper from the tray and let them cool completely for 5-6 hours or overnight, cover with a towel.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 21
Step 22

Then slice and enjoy the resulting fluff - this recipe is really worth the time and effort, you will be appreciated and the only problem is that it ends very quickly.

Good appetite!

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 22
Step 24

Complete:

For 2 years I started making cakes in cake trays, not in cake trays. Notice on the right the cake tray, it is deeper and wider than the cake tray and the cakes have enough space to grow nicely and well. Respectively, they come out fluffy and do not crack at all.

The size of the cake trays is 15x30 cm, the depth is 10 cm.

Romanian Wallnut Sweet Bread - Step 24
Quantity: 1500 g (3-4 medium cakes or 2 large cakes)
Prep time:
120 min
Difficulty: intermediate
Ready in: 180 min
Source: Gabriela Cara