Chourek! An Easter Classic - Emelia Jackson

This bread can be notoriously difficult to master (you look at it wrong and it can be as dense as bricks) but I've tested and tested to bring you the most simple recipe I could!

The bread proofing function in the LOML  (love of my life) Belling oven makes this recipe totally achievable in a few short hours. If you are making loaves to gift to friends, you can double or triple the ingredients and bake the loaves all at the one time with the enormous capacity of this oven. Absolute game changer come Easter time.

240ml Lukewarm milk

21g Instant yeast

765g Plain or bread flour

180g Caster sugar

1/2tsp Salt

15g Mahlepi

Zest of 1 orange and lemon

2tsp Vanilla bean

3 Eggs

50ml Oil

50g Softened butter

Egg wash and sesame seeds

Combine 80ml milk with yeast, 3tsp flour and 1tsp sugar and set aside to get frothy.

Combine all of the ingredients, including the frothy yeast mix, in the bowl of your stand mixer with a dough hook and knead until springy/pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Rise 1: Set your oven to the bread proofing function and rise for 30-45 minutes. Knock back, divide into 6 even balls, roll into logs and braid into 2 x braided loafs.

Rise 2: Again using the bread proofing function, allow to rise for 1 hour. 

Egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake at 170C for 30 minutes.