Bread Baker's Apprentice—Greek Celebration Bread

The Greek Celebration Breads are sweet breads served at holiday times such as Christmas, Easter and New Year's. This week I made the Greek Christmas Bread called Christopsomos Bread. The holiday recipes are generally made using the base "Greek Celebration Bread" and then fruit and nuts are added.

I chose to make the Christopsomos bread in part because I'm a big fan of raisin bread and hot cross buns, and also because of its curly cue appearance. Today though I was in the mood for something a little different, so I replaced the fruit with raisins and swapped walnuts out in favor of pecans. Yum!

This recipe suggests that authentic Greek spices can be used. Spices such as Mastic and Mahleb (which is extracted from Santa Lucia cherry pits) could replace all the spices found in the recipe.) Unfortunately, I couldn’t find either locally, so here is the North American version.

Recipe

Makes 1 loaf

For the Poolish:
2½ cups unbleached bread flour
1½ cups water, at room temperature
¼ teaspoon instant yeast

For the Dough:
1 cup poolish (not the entire poolish above)
3½ cups unbleached bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon minced orange zest
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
¼ cup honey
¼ cup olive oil
¾ cup whole milk, lukewarm

My Christopsomos Variation:
1 cup dark raisins
½ cup chopped pecans

For the Glaze:
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon orange or lemon extract
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
You can find the recipe for Greek Celebration Bread in the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. To see how the rest of the BBA (Bread Baker's Apprentice) Challenge group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! I'm not listed there since the group grew to 200 (the cutoff point) too fast. I'll join in now and then, though.

Tasting Notes
First of all the appearance of this bread is amazing with its Christmas cross in the center and then swirls reminiscent of the elaborate columns found in ancient Greek architecture decorated with sesame seeds and honey glaze. Appearance-wise alone, this bread would draw out a chorus of oohs and aahs if served at a big family brunch.

So, what about the taste? Sweet and delicious! The raisins fit very nicely with the complex combination of spices in this bread, which was very reminiscent of hot cross buns. In all, I really enjoyed this bread and can't wait to serve it next Christmas!

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