Plaited Callah Bread

I would consider this sweet bread as a traditional Hungarian food, although I know the origins are different. Still every single Easter we have Fonott Kalács-Plaited callah bread, boiled eggs, ham, home made dry sausage and horseradish. You can have the plaited bread with butter and honey or jam or deep fried (if it is dried a bit) anyhow......yummy!!!!!!!

Plaited Callah Bread

Ingredients
50g self raising flour
130g strong flour
150g plain flour
6g dried yeast
135ml milk
1egg yolk, at room temperature
60g butter, at room temperature
8g vanilla sugar
50g sugar
8g salt
8g oil
1 egg beaten for the egg wash


In a bowl dissolve the yeast with 1 tablespoon sugar in lukewarm milk. When the yeast well risen add the butter, oil and the egg yolk.
In a separate bowl sieve together the flours, rest of the sugars, salt then add the liquids and work it together into a dough. 
Kneed it for 15minutes, then cover it and leave to rise at a lukewarm place, until it doubles in size. Divide the dough into six pieces and shape to long braids.


And here is some technical help. He is amazing, BUT I WARN you, because he makes it look easy, it isn't in the reality. I would suggest you try it with some shoe laces or anything else, not like me(on the very first go: trying 6 braids, from double dough quantity, laptop on the worktop, the braids in my floury hand................). 

In the end I cheated: I made 2 X 3braided loaf and paced them on top of each other. It looks real, unless you are an expert plaited bread maker:)


If you have your shaped plaited bread, cover it again and leave it to rise again until it doubles in size. You can use your oven as a proofer, just set the temperature to 50  °C  and put a bowl of water at the bottom so humidity can help your bread to rise. If you use this method you can apply an egg wash layer now, and then one again before baking. 


Using a brush, cover your bread with a layer of egg wash and put it into the preheated 180 °C  oven. Bake it for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.