If you’re like me, then a big part of the holiday season is baking homemade breads and treats. My family traditionally has this bread for breakfast on Christmas morning, and I have continued the tradition with my own family.
My mom always made a few growing up. She would make one with apricot filling (when I was little this was referred to as the grown up bread), and one with a chocolate streusel filling (aka the kids bread). We would also make one for our neighbors, which all three of us kids had to take to them. In hindsight I am not sure if we dreaded taking them the bread because we were all insolent children, or if it was because we wanted more of the chocolate bread for ourselves and had a long running theory that they didn’t even eat it.
Since I am partial to the chocolate streusel bread, and my husband has quite the sweet tooth, we always just make the chocolate version, so the recipe for that is below. You can also use the same bread for multiple different fillings, I just don’t like to break with tradition for this one.
The recipe can be quite intimidating at first, but I promise this bread comes together easily. The dough just needs time for the yeast to do its thing, and the braid isn’t actually a braid but just overlapping sides. You can go all one direction, or meet in the middle as I did below.
I hope you try this recipe, and it’s one of my all time favorites. To me, it’s not Christmas without a slice of Christmas Bread after opening the stockings on Christmas morning.
Christmas Bread
Ingredients
For the Buttery Rich Sweet Dough:
- 2 envelopes active dry yeast (each packet ¼ oz each)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 cup very warm water
- 4 ¾ to 5 cups all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- Grated rind of 1 medium-size orange (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup unsalted butter, cut up, cold
- 3/4 cup milk
- 4 egg yolks
For the Chocolate/Maple Pecan Filling:
For The Maple-Pecan Nut Streusel
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup butter, cut up
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon maple extract
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1 ounce milk chocolate, finely chopped
Note: Combine 1 cup of the streusel with 1 ounce of chocolate for the amount of filling needed for one bread. This base streusel recipe makes enough for multiple breads.
For the Icing:
- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoons warm milk
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
For the Buttery Rich Sweet Dough:
- Sprinkle yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar over very warm water in small bowl. Stir to dissolve yeast. Let stand until bubbly; about 10 minutes.
- Combine 4 ½ cups of the flour, sugar, salt, orange rind and nutmeg in a stand mixer. On low speed, add in butter until consistency of fine crumbs.
- Make a well in the center. Stir in milk, yolks, and yeast mixture. Gradually add enough remaining flour to make sticky dough, working dough well, scrape down side of bowl occasionally.
- Form dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for 3 hours; dough will be very firm but ready to work with.
- Punch dough down. Turn out onto lightly floured surface.
- Divide dough into thirds. Work with one portion at a time and keep remaining two portions covered and refrigerated.
- Shape dough into an oval shape, about 3/8” thick and 14” long and 8” wide.
- Put bread filling in center 1/3, and cut even strips on either side to fold over the filling in a ‘braid.’ Fold up ends and side strips, then cover with towel and let rise for 1/2 hour.
- Bake at 375˚F for 20 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
For the Chocolate/Maple Pecan Filling:
- Combine sugar, the 2/3 cup flour, the butter, cinnamon and maple extract in electric blender or food processor until crumbly.
- Add pecans. Process until pecans are finely chopped.
- Transfer to bowl, refrigerate.
- When cool, crumble with fingers; sprinkle in the 1 tablespoon flour and blend.
- Add 1 ounce of chocolate per every 1 cup of streusel.
For the Icing:
- Combine confectioner’s sugar, milk, oil, and vanilla in a small bowl. Beat until smooth, adding more liquid if necessary
Notes
- This dough recipe makes enough for three small, or two medium individual breads.
- The amount of icing in the recipe makes enough for 2 breads, or 1 very generously iced loaf.
- Dough may be refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 3 weeks.