Cozonac

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

This walnut-swirled, gently sweet bread is a tasty loaf that's perfect for snacking on.

Prep Time45

Cook Time45

rest time (approx)2

Total Time1 30

Course: Snack

Cuisine: Romanian

Servings: slices (approx)

Calories: 252kcal

Author: Caroline's Cooking

Save

Ingredients

For dough

½ cup milk
⅓ cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
⅓ cup unsalted butter
2 ½ cups all purpose flour plain flour
½ tablespoon dried instant yeast
¼ teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling

¾ cup walnut pieces (¾ cup is approx 3oz)
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ tablespoon sugar
2 egg whites

To glaze

1 egg will not use all
1 teaspoon raw sugar approx

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Warm the milk, sugar and lemon zest in a small pan over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the butter, in small pieces. Stir to melt the butter in the heat of the liquid. Allow to cool until lukewarm.
Meanwhile, add the yeast and salt to the flour and mix through. Separate the eggs and chill the whites until needed later.
Once the milk mixture has cooled, add the flour mixture, egg yolks and vanilla. Mix to bring the dough together then knead the dough a few minutes - you can either mix then knead a couple minutes with a stand mixture or mix by hand and knead on a lightly floured surface around five minutes. Bring the dough together in a ball.
Lightly oil a bowl and add the dough then cover with a cloth or plastic wrap. Allow to rise at a warm room temperature for around an hour, until doubled in size.
Towards the end of the rising time, blend the walnuts, sugar and cocoa powder together in a food processor to form a coarse powder. Separately, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks then fold in the nut mixture. Chill until needed.
Once the dough has risen, remove from bowl and divide into two pieces. Take one of the pieces of dough, gently knock it back to reduce in size a little then roll it into a square/rectangle roughly 11 inches (28cm) square, or slightly longer in one direction.
Take half of the nut filling mixture and spread it over the flattened dough, leaving around ½ in (1cm) without the filling around the edges. Roll up into a log (as you would a cinnamon roll - you can roll either long or short edge, as you prefer, if you made it more rectangle-shaped). Don't make the roll too tight as you want to allow a bit of space for it to expand. Repeat with the other piece of dough and filling.
Grease a loaf pan/tin with butter - I used a 9x5in (23x13cm) loaf pan/tin but 8 ½ x 4 ½in/ 21x11cm also works. Then, take the two rolls of dough and twist them together all the way down. Carefully place the twist in the loaf tin, tucking the ends in slightly if needed. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise, roughly an hour again, until it has almost doubled (it may not fill out the tin but that is fine, it will expand more on baking).
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Brush the top of the loaf with lightly beaten egg then sprinkle over some raw sugar. Bake the loaf in the middle-bottom of the preheated oven for approximately 35-45 minutes until it is golden brown on top and cooked through. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the pan to cool completely.

Video

Notes

I typically prefer to make this with instant (fast acting) yeast, where you can mix it in with the flour. If you prefer to use active dry yeast, use the same amount but add it to the lukewarm milk mixture and leave to froth up a few minutes before combining with the dry ingredients.

Nutrition