Here's the recipe of the german plaited easter bread with a sweet filling. The base is a rich yeast dough. The filling has lots of marzipan and almonds. The tricky thing: You roll out the dough and spread the filling on the dough. Then you roll to a big log which is then cut in half up to one end that holds it still together. The cut open strands are then carefully twisted around each other - and that's the stick part … But it's worth all the effort!

Here's the recipe:
For the dough:

20 g fresh yeast (or 2 ts instant yeast)
250 ml lukewarm milk
80 g very soft butter
75 g sugar
1 egg
1/2 ts salt
500 g cake flour

For the filling:

100 g chopped and roasted almonds
400 g marzipan
2 egg whites
6 drops of bitter almond oil
2 tbs lemon juice

For the glaze

2-3 tbs water (maybe less!)
150 g apricot jam
150 g icing sugar (I took less - ajust the amount of icing to your liking!)

Dissolve the yeast with a little milk and the sugar. The takes a few minutes.
Combine yeast, the egg, remaining milk, butter, salz and flour to your mixer with dough hook adjusted. Knead for about 3 minutes at low speed or knead with your hands.
Knead the dough at higher speed for about 5 min. until you get a smooth dough.

Cover the dough and let it rise until it doubles in size, about 45 min.

Grate the marzipan roughly and combine with egg whites, bitter almond oil and lemon juice. I use a mixer for that to obtain a smooth cream.

Preheat oven to 190 °C.

Roll out the dough on floured surface. It should be 45x45 cm.

Spread the filling on the dough leaving 1-1,5 cm free on each side of the dough.

Sprinkle with almonds.

Roll the dough to a log. Place it on a baking paper lined baking sheet. Cut in half, leaving one side closed (see picture).

Twist the two strands around each other. Stick the ends to each other.

Bake for 35 minutes but check after 25 minutes. It the bread browns too quickly, cover with aluminium foil.

Heat the apricot jam with 3 tbs of water.

Mix the icing sugar with 2-3 tbs of water.

Brush the hot bread with the apricot jam. Leave to cool for about 10 min. Brush with the icing.

Even if it's hard to do: Leave to cool for about 30 min. before serving!

Pages: 1· 2