Romanian Traditional Sweet Bread With Walnuts- Cozonac

Romanian Traditional Sweet Bread With Walnuts- Cozonac is a recipe made every year for the holidays. Flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and yeast are the main ingredients.

Jump to:

• What is Cozonac?
• Variations
• My grandmother's way of making cozonac:
• Baking Cozonac: Key Observations
• How To Make
• Some other recipes to love
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

What is Cozonac?

Cozonac is a sweet bread into which milk, yeast, eggs, sugar, butter, and other ingredients are mixed and allowed to rise before baking.

Every European country, from Portugal to Spain to England, Italy, Greece, or Romania, has a version of sweet, beautiful Christmas or Easter bread made mostly for these celebrations. It just doesn't feel like Christmas or Easter without it.

Variations

In Italy, it is called Panettone. Greeks have Tsoureki, Slovenians have Potica, Germans have Stollen, etc. 

This Romanian-rich yeast bread tastes like the Italian Panettone but is a little denser and usually has a filling inside.

There are dozens of variations of the recipe. Some have walnuts or poppy seed filling, some have raisins or other dried fruits in the bread dough, like in the picture below.

The variations seem to be endless, but the results are always spectacular.

Romania is predominantly Christian Orthodox, and despite the 50 years of communism that ended in 1989 with a revolution, the traditions are still very strong.

I grew up eating this bread every year and every holiday. Christmas or Easter, this bread was on our tables.

Even today, bread is made in almost every household, and if you don't know how to make it, you might still have a grandmother, mother, or aunt who would bake it for you.

If you don't have anybody to bake, you can buy it. Around the holidays, this bread is available in all bakeries.

Each household has its own recipe, and each region of the country makes it differently.

People might argue about which recipe is more authentic than the other, but if you look at the ingredients and how the bread is made, the process is pretty much the same.

What varies is the number of eggs, sugar, or what kind of filling is used.

Romanians are proud to keep the traditions alive, and making Cozonac for holidays is a pretty important part of the celebration.

They might also make the "Pasca," the same sweet yeast bread but filled with Farmer cheese and raisins for Easter.

The dough is baked in a round shape, and the cheese is placed in the middle.

Isn't that beautiful?

For this post, I chose a classic recipe of sweet bread filled with walnuts, something you might find in most Romanian households.

My grandmother used to make multiple loaves of this slightly sweet bread for Christmas or Easter. It was a ritual, and rules needed to be followed.

This bread is very suitable for gifting, and this is what she used to do around the holidays. In the Orthodox religion, people honor and remember ancestors by giving food away.

This is done various times a year, but especially around the holidays, people would gift food to the less fortunate, who might not afford much around that time. 

My grandmother would put together plates filled with food that she made for the holidays.

It was maybe a slice of this delicious bread, perhaps 4-5 stuffed cabbage rolls(very traditional on Christmas day), few meatballs, slices of Feta cheese, salami, fresh homemade sausages, slices of bread, cookies, or other desserts she had available. 

A glass of wine always accompanied the plates to celebrate the holidays. It was a wonderful way to make the holidays a little bit easier for these people.

My grandmother's way of making cozonac:

Getting back to this traditional bread, I remember that my grandma's kitchen, where the dough was supposed to rise, had to be very warm, so my maternal grandma would wake up very early in the morning and make the fire in that room.

She would gather together the ingredients for the dough and bring them to room temperature. This was one very important step.

The windows were foggy and we, as kids, we're banned from getting in and out of the kitchen multiple times.

The drafts of cold air that might disturb the natural process of the rising dough were not allowed.

I am not sure if this was true, but my grandmother used to be very adamant about the matter.

The other exhausting step was kneading and beating the dough. She did not have a KitchenAid!

Everything was done by hand, so watching my grandma "beat" the dough was very entertaining, and we loved being around!

The only condition was to choose which side of the door we wanted to be, as remember, entering the kitchen door multiple times was frown upon.  

It always smelled so comforting in the kitchen with the aroma of orange/lemon peel, rum, butter, and finally baked bread.

Baking Cozonac: Key Observations

I heard many Romanians complaining that this sweet bread (Cozonac) is hard to make. I had this fear for many years, too, until I moved to the US and could not find the bread in the store, so I had to make it.

One thing I learned over the years is that, indeed, it takes a little bit of time. It is easy for me now because I don't have to knead the dough by hand.

 I have a KitchenAid mixer that saved my life in the kitchen on many occasions.

My grandmother used to spend some time on that. She made huge amounts of dough, and it was a real workout to make sure the gluten in that dough was developed correctly.

These women knew how the dough should look like to obtain a perfect final product. They also took pride in their work. 

Also, the quality of the ingredients matters. Living in the US, I like buying organic flour, organic eggs, and organic milk. While it is not mandatory to have organic ingredients, make sure you use the best ingredients you can afford.

Weigh everything! A kitchen scale is very important, especially when you bake. As I said many times, 500 g of flour is 500 g of flour, while the amount can vary tremendously in 2 cups of flour.

That can ruin a very good recipe! Measure, measure, and measure again!

Bring the ingredients to room temperature. As my grandmother used to do, having eggs, butter, and flour at room temperature is extremely important.

Also, make sure you put together the ingredients before you start the recipe. 

There is nothing more frustrating than running around the kitchen while you bake, for little things, or discover that you do not have enough flour, butter, eggs to use in the recipe! Have them all prepared on the kitchen counter.

The dough needs time to rise, and the kitchen temperature is very important. 

If the temperature in your kitchen is 72F/22C, the dough will double in size in about 90 minutes.

However, if the temperature is lower, like in my kitchen, where it is usually colder, around 66-67F/18-19C, it might take about 2-3 hours. If your kitchen is very warm, 76-77F/25C, the dough will rise in about an hour.

So that you know, the dough also can rise in the fridge 35-40F/2-6C in about 12 hours.

Also, because there are so many recipes out there, and you might be tempted to combine recipes or replace ingredients, keep in mind that if you use more sugar and butter in the dough, the rising process might be longer.

Also, if you add too much sugar, you might end up with dense bread, as sugar and butter inhibit the development of gluten.

How To Make

For the filling:

Measure ¼ rum and place the raisins into the bowl. Set aside until you are ready to make the filling.

Starter: 

Warm up the milk to 110F/44C, add the sugar, and mix to dissolve. Add the yeast and set it aside in a warm, draught-free place for 5 minutes or until frothy.

Add the lemon rind and vanilla.

Separate the eggs. For the dough, we will use only the yolks. (The egg white will be used to make the filling.)

In a small bowl, mix yolks with the salt. Salt is essential in baking. It enhances the taste of the final product.

Also, in this case, the salt intensifies the color of the yolks, and the bread will have a slightly yellow, beautiful color. Set aside.

Meanwhile, sift the flour and place it in a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Start the mixer on low speed and add egg yolks. 

Mix slowly while you start adding the milk mixture.

You will obtain a very soft, sticky dough. Continue to mix while you add the soft butter, little by little.

Continue to knead at low speed for 6-8 minutes or until the dough is smooth, elastic, and not sticky anymore.

Tip: If the mixer gets too hot, stop and let cool for 5-10 minutes, then knead again until you obtain the elastic dough.

Lightly grease a medium bowl with a little bit of oil, add the dough and turn to coat the dough in the oil.

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in size. (according to the temperature in your kitchen, it might take longer)

(As you can see in the picture, the dough got a little bit crazy here.) 🙂

Prepare the filling

Beat the egg whites frothy, then add the sugar and continue to beat to a soft pick. Fold the ground walnuts and the mixture of raisins and rum gently. 

Brush four loaf pans with melted butter to grease.

Punch the center of the dough down with your fist and turn it onto a lightly oiled surface. Knead for 1-2 minutes or until reduced to its original volume.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Use a lightly oiled rolling pin to roll out a dough portion to an 8x10 inches(20 cm x 25 cm) rectangle.

(My daughter loves doing this part every year.)

Sprinkle a quarter of the filling evenly over the dough. Starting from a long side, roll up the dough to form a log and enclose the filling.

Repeat with the remaining dough portions and filling.

Place each log into a 9x5 inches bread pan. Cover with a slightly damp kitchen towel and set aside in a warm place for 1 hour or until almost doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. 

Brush the tops of the loaves with the whisked egg and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Bake for 20 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 330F/170C and bake for a further 30 minutes or until cooked through and the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the top.  

Your oven could be different; therefore, you might need to bake for another 5-10 minutes or less.

Stand in the tins for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool (this will take about 1 hour).

Serve at room temperature, cut into slices, and enjoy!

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