At Christmas you can buy these everywhere in Denmark. They are e.g. eaten during breakfast or at afternoon tea.
They really taste like Christmas, too: With cardamom, cinnamon, candied peel, and raisins in the dough and sugar and nuts on top. I love how Christmas dishes are always full of spices!
Christmas Bread
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 dl whole milk
- 25 g fresh yeast
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cardamom grounded
- 1 tbsp cinnamon grounded
- 75 g sugar
- 50 g raisins or dried cranberry or chopped and dried apricot
- 75 g candied peel
- 450 g flour
- 1 egg as garnish
- 6 tbsp pearl sugar as garnish
- 40 g hazelnuts as garnish
Instructions
- Heat the milk till it is lukewarm (not too hot or too cold for e.g. a little finger)
- Dissolve the yeast in the milk in a bowl
- Whisk one egg in the milk
- Add salt, cardamom, cinnamon, and sugar (not the pearl sugar)
- Add half the flour and stir till it has an even texture
- Add the raisins and candied peel and the rest of the flour
- Sprinkle the kitchen top with flour and knead the dough till it has an even texture and isn't too sticky
- Let the dough raise for about 1 hour in a bowl covered with a dishtowel
- Form about 8 buns and let them raise for about 30 min on two pieces of baking paper cover with a dishtowel
- Whisk the egg in a small bowl and chop the hazelnuts
- Brush the buns with egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar and finely chopped hassenlut
- Bake the buns at 180 degrees C in 20-30 min
- Serve the buns while they are warm