Braided Sweet Bread.

Hi!

Since I have upped my exercise I have found myself more hungry than I used to be. I have decided to combat that today by baking.  Sounds silly right? It is more calories burned and I don't have to eat what I have baked. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

I have also found that while I feel hungry more it takes less to satisfy me. Awesomeness right?

So I saw some sweetbread recipes on pintrest and decided I wanted to make bread. I did not like the recipes I found. they contained ingredients I did not have like lemon zest or way too much of what I have like 12 eggs.

I did finally find a wonderful little recipe for braided sweet bread. It looked amazing. And it looked like what I wanted. So I made it.

Here is the recipe.

• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups warm milk
• 1 package dry yeast
• 4 tablespoons margarine, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 1/2 cups flour (use more to knead)
• 1 beaten egg

Directions:

1. Mix together water, warm milk, and yeast.
    
2. Add melted margarine, sugar, salt and flour.
    
3. Knead dough, place in bowl, cover and let rise in warm place 1 hour.
    
4. Divide dough into 6 parts.
    
5. Shape dough into 6 long pieces (length of baking sheet).
    
6. On baking sheet, braid 3 of the pieces together like you would hair, then braid remaining 3 pieces 
   together.
    
7. Cover and let raise 1 more hour.
    
8. Brush beaten egg on top and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

***

So I combined the milk into a pot with the water. I set this to warm.

While that happened I combined the sugar salt and flour.

And melted the margarine. Normally I would use Butter but it is what the recipe calls for....

In the meantime I had heated up the milk way too hot for yeast to live in. So I poured it into the mixing bowl and went and did some cleaning. When I came back it was the perfect temperature.

I then added the yeast to the milk and water mixture. I took a pic while the mixer was going.

Then I added the margarine.

Then the flour sugar& salt mixture.

This is the point where I started to forget I needed to take pictures. Sorry. Next time I make this I promise to come back and ass pictures of the steps I forgot.




It seemed a little too tacky still so I added another half cup of flour.  then I set it to rest all covered.

This is what it looked like inside the bowl.

Please forgive me I forgot to take pics after it rose and the whole braiding process.


I rolled it out and it was really easy like working with playdoh.



Here it is all braided.

I covered it and let it rise an hour.

Here it is an hour later.

Then i beat an egg. (it was naughty) and brushed it on the bread.

It's all shiney!

Then I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes.

I forgot to take a picture after it came right out of the oven.

I did frost it with some cream cheese frosting while it was still hot.

Looks good right?


***
The verdict. Was super easy to make. (I say that a lot) Smells wonderful. Tastes better.

I think next time I might add raisins or other fruit. I may even braid in some cherry pie filling.