That time of year has come again when we look for tsoureki recipes, searching for spices that will elevate their taste and aroma. We find ourselves facing the dilemma: Constantinople-style tsoureki, firm and rich with the aroma of mastic and cardamom, or fluffy, stringy tsoureki with a citrus aroma? With fresh yeast or dry yeast, with olive oil or butter? New and old recipes, vegan tsoureki, tsoureki without eggs and butter, tsourekia “straight” from the City. Whatever each person wants and whatever suits them.
This year’s Easter and the whole period leading up to it have put us in a different frame of mind, with different dilemmas, and found us with different priorities. The days we are living through are unprecedented, stressful, and difficult.
Now we are called upon to limit our movements, our outings, our gatherings, our plans—probably for a while and certainly for a good reason.
Our imagination, our creativity, our energy, our concern and care for those we love and who love us do not need to be limited, and must not be limited.
Now, perhaps more than ever before, it is good to focus on ourselves, to look within and beside us, to produce only those things we truly need, those things that make us self-sufficient and fulfilled.
Let us create with our hands and with our minds, things new, fresh, adapted to the new conditions of our daily lives.
Restarts often come into our lives suddenly, unexpectedly, without us even choosing them. But human beings are adaptable creatures, and our inexhaustible thirst for life gives us the strength and motivation to manage, every single time.
Cook the food you love to eat with your loved ones on festive days, choose the wine that suits it, set the table in the yard or on the balcony with your best tablecloth, put out a bouquet of spring flowers, wear your festive clothes. Do whatever you would do if your home were full of people, full of cheerful noise! You deserve the best, we deserve the best! Better days will come!
Happy Easter to everyone, with health and hope!
INGREDIENTS for 5 large tsourekia
- 1,200 g flour for tsoureki (there are several in supermarkets; I used Manna the Golden)
- 100 g fresh yeast
- 200 g cow’s butter (melted and lukewarm)
- 350 g sugar
- 400 ml lukewarm whole milk
- 4 eggs (lightly beaten)
- 1 teaspoon ground mastic
- 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
- 1 tablespoon mahleb (one packet is this amount)
- 1 vanilla pod or one packet vanilla flavoring
- 1 level teaspoon salt
- sliced almonds or sesame or poppy seeds for garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
Gather all the ingredients needed for the tsourekia, weigh whatever needs weighing, sift the flour, melt the butter, warm the milk, and grind the spices. There are quite a lot of ingredients, so if you have everything ready in front of you, the process will be easier and quicker.
You will need a very large bowl or basin to knead the tsourekia and leave them to rise, and a slightly smaller bowl to make the starter.
First take the smaller bowl, add two to three tablespoons of flour, one to two tablespoons of sugar, a little of the lukewarm milk—about one-third of it—and the yeast, after crumbling it with your hands. Stir well until you have a thin batter, cover it, and leave it aside for 15 minutes until it begins to rise.
You can use a mixer to combine the ingredients or do it by hand, if you have strong arms—or if you would like to get some on the way.
Put the sifted flour, salt, and vanilla in the mixer bowl or in a large basin and mix with a spatula. Do not add all the flour from the start; keep about one cup aside for the end. Then add the lightly beaten eggs, reserving a very small amount—about 2 tablespoons—to brush the tsourekia at the end.
Add the spices—cardamom, mastic, mahleb—to the sugar and pour them into the bowl with the flour. Stir again a little with the spatula; this helps all the ingredients mix well, since the quantity of flour is large. Finally, add the yeast mixture, the milk, and half of the melted butter. Keep the other half to knead into the dough at the end. At this point, begin kneading by hand or attach the dough hook to the mixer and start.
When you see that you have an elastic, heavy dough, gradually add the flour you kept aside and continue kneading. The dough is soft and tender but should not stick to your hands.
Now it is time to use the other half of the melted butter. Add the melted butter little by little and fold the dough; keep doing this until all the butter is used up.
Cover the dough and leave it to rise; it will take at least two hours, because the dough is heavy and rich, so it needs patience.
When it has doubled in volume, knead the dough lightly again, meaning deflate it with your hands, fold it again—as shown in the video—and leave it to rise one more time. In general, know that tsoureki dough needs its time; be patient with it and you will not lose out.
When you see that your dough has risen—and it usually rises a lot—deflate it again with your hands and begin shaping the tsourekia.
Divide the dough into portions; this quantity will be enough to make 4 or 5 tsourekia, depending on how large you make them or how you braid them.
You can make the classic braid or various other braids; there are many, as long as you feel like it.
Just make sure that the ropes you use contain the same amount of dough, so that they are uniform.
After shaping the tsourekia, leave them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Brush them with a very small amount of beaten egg—the part you reserved earlier—then sprinkle them with almonds, sesame, or poppy seeds. Leave them to rise—again!—for about 1 hour and bake them for about 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 170°C with top and bottom heat.
Remember that the maturation of the dough always depends on the temperature of the room we are in, so times are always relative; for that reason, keep an eye on the dough and, of course, trust yourself.
When the tsourekia are baked, leave them on a rack to cool well, then cover them with plastic wrap so they do not dry out.
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