Russian Braided Rose Bread | World Bread Day

I am thrilled to be baking along with the Bread Baking Babes as a Buddy on World Bread Day.

This bread is all about shape. And it is beautiful.

I was able to make this bread right before a drive from Orange County to Carmel to meet our favorite foodies for a fabulous weekend of dining and sightseeing. Our car smelled like garlic all of the way up north. This was a good thing.

This bread was great with a little Boursin spread at cocktail hour.

The bread is moist but a little dense. It had great oven rise, but is not all that airy. Maybe that is from the buttery filling. What's so cool is that it stays moist over time. It does not taste "day old."

At the bottom of this post is a video demonstrating the braiding technique by Ciril Hitz.

Russian Braid

Adapted from My Kitchen in Half Cups

Ingredients

Filling

Use your imagination to create your own. I think a cinnamon roll type filling would be incredible. This was my filling.

Mix together the following ingredients:

1 stick butter, melted

1 head of garlic, roasted, peeled, and chopped

3 T chopped fresh rosemary

3 T dried onion flakes

1/2 C freshly grated parmesan cheese

Dough

550 grams all purpose flour

50 grams whole wheat flour

2 1/4 tsp instant yeast

10 grams sugar

10 grams salt

50 grams olive oil

1 T white vinegar

300 grams water

Directions:

Add all of the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix the dough first with a large spoon, and then with the dough hook for about six minutes. Add water or flour to adjust the dough to make it less/more sticky. This dough should be supple but not sticky. 

Place the dough into an oiled bowl and allow to rise until it has grown by 80 percent. This should take about 40 minutes to an hour.

Butter or oil a 10 inch cake pan.

Roll the dough out as demonstrated in the video below. 

Spread the filling in a thin layer onto the dough and roll it up tightly and continue to stretch it until you have a long roulade.

Cut the roulade in half lengthwise with a chef's knife as demonstrated in the video. 

Carefully braid the two halves of the roulades keeping the cut sides up, and then curl them around in a snail pattern. Tuck the endes under the coil. 

Place the shaped dough into the cake pan.

Preheat the oven to 410 degrees F while letting the dough rise for 20 to 40 minutes, until nearly doubled. 

Bake at 410 F for 10 minutes, and then lower the oven temperature to 355 degrees F and bake for another 30 minutes. The loaf should reach 190 degrees F in the center. 

Turn the loaf out of the pan and let it cool on a rack. 

Awesomeness!