Ingredients

Batter:

• 500 g wheat flour type 405
• 30 g fresh yeast
• 80 g raw cane sugar or birch sugar
• 250 ml lukewarm milk
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 80 g butter or margarine
• grated lemon peel of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp cardamom, freshly grounded
• 80 g raisins (optional)

Coat:

• 1 whisked egg for brushing
• almond flakes (optional)

Last Saturday I made that traditional easter twist with my daughter. Actually we would have visited my grandma Luzi on that day, who makes that twist for us every year. But we shouldn’t visit our grandparents currently. So we stayed at home and asked her for the recipe on the phone. We still had some fresh yeast (I couldn’t buy any since then), but neither raisins nor almonds – that wasn’t a problem at all. It tasted absoultely delicious and we ended eating it like bread every morning. Some of you asked for Oma’s recipe: There you go!

Put the flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Mix yeast with a bit of lukewarm milk, a pinch of sugar and some flour and put into the well. Let the yeast rise for about 10 minutes. Mix all ingredients. I’m doing it with my kitchen machine. Add butter, egg yolk, salt, lemon peel, cardamom and raisins and mix it once more. Form a smooth dough that comes away from the bowl. Allow the dough to rise for 30-50 minutes.

Form 3 (very simple) or 5 dough rolls, connect them on top. Start weaving them like a braid, with 5 rolls take the left roll over the nearest one and pull it under the one in the middle, then take the right roll over the nearest and pull it under the one in the middle and so on. Connect the ends with your hands finally.

Now use the whisked egg for brushing the twist and sprinkle it with almonds if you like. Bake at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes, then cover it with baking paper for final baking till it looks good (around 10 minutes). Enjoy!