Hungarian Easter dishes: Milk Loaf (kalács) with dried fruits

Milk loaf (kalács) with dried fruits

Ingredients

300 g flour
50 ml lukewarm milk with a coffee-spoon of sugar in it
25 g yeast
50 ml rum
50 g sugar
2 sachets of vanilla sugar (20 g)
2 eggs
80 g butter + a little bit for greasing the baking form
1 coffee-spoon oil
150 g dried or candied fruits (raisins, prunes, apricot)
grated rind of a well-washed orange
1 egg yolk

Instructions

Slices of milk loafWash raisins in hot water, drain them and let them soak in rum.
Crumble fresh yeast in the lukewarm sugary milk.
Sieve flour in a deep bowl and make a small hollow in the middle with the back of your fist.
Pour milk and yeast mixture in the hollow, sprinkle some flour on top, cover it with a tablecloth and let it rise in a warm place (takes about 15 minutes).
Melt the butter and let it cool a bit.
Slightly beat up 2 whole eggs, mix them with 50 g sugar, rum strained from the raisins, and grated rind of a well-washed orange.
Add this mixture and butter to the dough and knead it well until you get dough that has an elastic, blistery consistency.
It also pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It takes some time and it’s a great physical exercise.
Butter a baking form. Place dough on a slightly floured board and knead it well.
Roll it out to make about a 25×40 cm rectangle.
Sprinkle raisins and dried, candied fruits over it.
Roll it up and form a ring by sticking together the two ends of the roll.
Place the ring in the baking form, cover it with a kitchen cloth and let it rise until it fills out the form (about 30-40 minutes).
Preheat oven up to 220 °C and place a heat-resistant bowl or can with hot water in it on bottom of the oven (the steam is necessary for baking the batter).
Cut zig-zag forms in the top of the dough with scissors.
Mix egg yolk with oil and brush dough with the mixture. It’ll give a nice glaze to the milk loaf. Tip #1: You can sprinkle the top with some peeled almonds.
Bake dough in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes at 220 °C, than reduce heat down to 200 °C and bake it for about another 60 minutes.
Tip: Cover dough with foil should the top start to brown.
Let milk loaf cool a bit in the form then remove it onto a tray.
Slice it up and sprinkle it with castor sugar.