How to Make the Best Greek Tsoureki Easter Bread (all of your questions answered!)

[Music] hi guys yes to another episode of dimitra's dishes today we're making tsureki tsureki is the greek easter sweet bread that is just so light and aromatic and delicious perfect with a cup of coffee now every year i get pictures from you guys of the tureke that you make at home they all look they always look beautiful and you you let me know that they're the most delicious tsureki that you guys have ever made but i also get a few common uh questions and problems that you guys come across so we're gonna we're gonna go over those in this video and if i don't go over one that you've had in the past post it in the comment section down below and i'll respond to it as soon as i can let's get started so i'm using my stand mixer i'm going to attach the dough hook in a few seconds we always begin by proofing the yeast so we're gonna add the milk so in the original recipe i use only a half cup of the milk and then i add the three quarters of a cup afterwards but i found that adding all the milk at once works perfectly fine you want to make sure that the the room that the milk is slightly warm a little bit warm it's kind of like lukewarm water that's what it should feel like and then i have two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a couple teaspoons of granulated sugar that's going to help feed the yeast so that we can make sure that it is alive if your yeast is not good the turkey will not rise so this is a tablespoon of active dry yeast one question was if you guys can use fresh yeast and that usually comes in like little cubes yes you can you're just going to need about four times the amount and i do have the gram measurements on the blog post that's going to be linked to this recipe now we're just going to give this a a little whisk i'll use this knife over here and i'm going to set it aside for about 10 minutes just to make sure that the yeast is going to start getting activated you know it's active when a foamy cloud forms on the top and i'll show you what that looks like in a little bit while that's happening we're going to measure the dry ingredients so it's important to have a kitchen scale because even though i do use cup and gran cut measurements gram measurements are always very accurate so i'm using four and a half cups of bread flour now this is not sponsored this is just my local supermarkets brand organic bread flour but i have made this with different companies bread flour and they always come out the same exact way so four and a half cups which is 720 grams and i'll measure it right in front of you so that way you see how i even measure it so that's one two three four and we're at 640 grams so the half cup should take it to 720 we're at 712 so i'll put a little more there we go 720 grams now you can use all-purpose flour if that's all you have that works perfectly last year during the pandemic it was impossible to find bread flour so i did test the recipe using all-purpose flour and it works perfectly i'll go over that step later then we need a little pinch of salt about a quarter teaspoon or so that seems right and you could do the zest of an orange or a zest of clementines and then we're going to add a cup of granulated sugar now the the two most important ingredients are mastica also known as mastic gum you only need a quarter teaspoon of this and it needs to be very finely ground and i'm going to show you how we grind it in just a second there are these crystals that have such a nice aroma people in grease chew this as gum because it is a resin it has a little bit of a pine flavor to it and then machlepi these are the mclappy seeds which is the best way to get them so that way they're really fresh in middle eastern stores you can find them as machlab and basically they're the pits of the cherry seed and these also need to be ground up so we're going to grind these right now so you can use a high speed blender or a coffee grinder we're going to need one heaping tablespoon but if you're making a bunch you could grind them all at once and keep them refrigerated so i'm putting the mclappy seeds in this little grinder and i'm just going to pulse them until they're finely ground and this is what it looks like when they're done there's so you can have some coarse pieces and some fine pieces i like the coarser pieces better so don't turn it into a powder so the thing about mastica is it does turn into a gum once you blend it too much so i have about a teaspoon of granulated sugar in there and i'll put about a teaspoon of mustika mastica granules in there and i'm just gonna turn this into a [Music] powder okay and you can also do this instead of in a food processor and a mixer you can do it using a mortar and pestle that's also an option so now i'm going to add the machlepi i want a heaping teaspoon heaping tablespoonful because this is where most of the characteristic flavor comes from and mastica you don't want to add too much a quarter teaspoon is just the right amount because if you add too much you might get a little overpowering and bitter and i do list other flavor options on the blog post so you can check that out then i'm just going to whisk everything all together and the yeast is activated let me show you what it's supposed to look like so the yeast is activated now we're going to add all of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl you can add them in all at once and then we need two eggs make sure that they're at room temperature if you if you forgot to take them out in the morning you can put them in a bowl of warm water and just switch the warm water out a few times until the eggs reach room temperature you want everything to be room temperature so that way the dough rises quickly and then to the eggs i'm going to add two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract i always go a little heavier with the vanilla and just whisk it together lightly and add the eggs and vanilla to the mixer and now we're going to let this knead for 10 minutes once the 10 minutes are up i'm gonna add the butter i have unsalted butter this is two ounces of unsalted butter and then i'm going to let that knead about two more minutes after the butter is added if you're using all-purpose flour then knead it for 12 minutes and then add the butter and eat it for two minutes more you need to need you have to need all-purpose flour a little bit more than the bread flour so that way the tsuyaki doesn't crumble and it stays just nice and stringy and soft and the way good today is supposed to be the dough is still going to be sticky but it's going to be it's going to have some strength to it it's not just going to drop and fall off the the dough hook it's going to be sticky still so make sure you don't add any more flour resist the urge to add more flour now even though i gave the gram measurement which is 720 grams of either all-purpose or bread flour for some reason depending on your altitude the humidity all these things it varies and i have made this in new york in my sister's house the measurement was still the same but sometimes you guys tell me that it was too wet or whatever a lot of times you you feel the need to add flour to combat the stickiness of the dough but you want the dough to be sticky so it can be nice and light instead of dry the second it hits the oil in the bowl the stickiness is going to go away so you want to have a bowl that's big enough to hold double the volume of the dough and add about two to three tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil then go ahead and transfer the dough to the oiled bowl [Music] and if you have one of these dough scrapers it's going to make life really easy i'll put the link down below where you can get one you see how sticky it is now watch when we toss it in the oil the stickiness completely goes away it's still really nice and soft which is the way it should be but it's no longer sticky cover it with plastic wrap or with a clean kitchen towel now the most important part is you have to set this aside so it can double in volume this can take up to four hours if it's cold in your house maybe even a little bit more but it can be done in as little as two or two and a half hours if you put in a really nice warm place now there's a trick that i use called the dryer trick and that is also in the description it's going to be in the blog post it does save you about 30 minutes if you use it you might have to run the dryer twice taking the bowl out check the blog post out for that set it aside it has to double in volume otherwise you're going to have problems with it spreading and just not baking right in the oven do not rush this part there's also a method known as the cold rise method what you would do is you would take this bowl just the way it is and put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours and let it rise slowly in the cold temperature that is an option if you want to bake it fresh on the day that you're going to be serving it then you would just take it out of the fridge form it into a braid or whatever shape you're forming it in let it get puffy for about 40 45 minutes or an hour it's going to take a little longer if it's cold and then you just bake it bake it off they say using the cold rise method more more flavor develops i'm not a huge fan of it because i don't like really working with cold dough but i did test it and it does work perfectly let it rise until it's doubled in volume then we're going to shape it the dough has risen this is what it should look like it should be nice and fluffy and soft i'm going to transfer it to my work surface and i'm going to cut it into two portions now you can make these big like the way i'm going to make them today the traditional size two this makes two beautiful big braids each portion if you're making the big braids should be cut into three equal pieces these aren't really equal but they will do and i do have a video on how to make stuffed tsurekia and i've stuffed them with nutella cream cheese an almond paste there are so many ways to do it and i made little mini ones i'll put the link down below where you can do that and now we're going to roll each one each strand each portion into a long rope so that way we can braid them together and if the dough rose properly it's going to be very easy to work with it's not going to shrink on you as you're rolling it out it's going to be nice and soft you're not going to need any extra flour if it's still a little bit on the sticky side you can grease your work surface with a little tiny bit of oil and your hands as well okay so now we're just going to braid it just the way you would braid hair and of course you could stuff each one of these strands with your favorite fillings but i'm keeping it very classic and plain because there's so much flavor so put it on a baking tray that's lined with parchment paper so we're just going to braid it one more time and in the top portion you can do the same thing and then place that on the parchment paper stay there then you want to loosely cover with the same piece of plastic that it was covered with before you want to preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit i like to put this on top of the stovetop while the oven is warming up and now it's going to take about 30 or 40 minutes for this to puff up a little bit you don't want this to double in size because then it's going to flatten while it's baking i'll show you what it looks like as soon as it's there now if you wanted to bake eggs into this to give it that easter festive touch then i don't like to bake the dyed eggs into the braid because a lot of times the color seeps through and it stains the bread what you can do like i mentioned in the blog post is fold or crumble up some balls of either parchment paper or aluminum foil is even better and then stick them in between wherever the eggs are going to be yeah wherever you want to put the eggs and that way the bread will bake it will bake with a little bit of a hole in it so that way once it's baked then you can put the eggs in there and it'll look as if they were baked in there if that makes sense but all of those step-by-step instructions are going to be on the blog post i'm going to set this aside and preheat my oven and then we're going to move on to the next step so the tsurekia were rising for 40 minutes and you know they're ready when they're when they puffed up a little bit and it holds your finger indentation see that if you poke them at first of all if they rose more than this and you poke them and they start to deflate that means that they roast too much and they might spread when they're baking so then sorry to say that you're going to have to cut them again and roll them out one more time and braid them so i have two egg yolks over here and i'm just going to break up a little bit with the pastry brush and i'm going to add a few tablespoons of whole milk you could do heavy cream if you want the heavy cream will make them a deeper golden color and just brush the tsurakia with the egg wash now i put them both on one tray but you can definitely bake them on separate trays if you prefer they are going to puff up a little bit more than this now you can leave them just like this you could sprinkle the top with some sesame seeds or with some almond slivers i'll leave one plain and one with almonds so these are going to bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit on the center rack for about 35 to 40 minutes as soon as they're beautifully golden like a mahogany color on top you're going to take them out and you're going to let them sit at room temperature for at least 20 minutes before you cut into them i'll show you what they look like as soon as they're done now while that happens i just did want to say that i put the ground up magleppi and the ground of mastica into little containers and i'm going to and i'm going to store them in the refrigerator because that's where they're going to keep freshest i'm going to store the mclappy seeds in my pantry and then i'll grind them whenever i need more the tedeka are ready they took 35 minutes in my oven to bake like i said look for the color and they should still be nice and soft so don't over bake them then let them sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes so that way they'll still be warm but all of the moisture will settle and it is time to take a bite but before i do that just look at how soft they are when you squeeze them they should be really nice and soft even though they're perfectly golden all around and when you pull them apart instead of crumbling like a cake they should have a little bit of stretch to them a little bit of a pull and almost like layers of stringy layers that's how you know that the tsureki was kneaded well it rose perfectly and then it was baked good good so it should be nice and moist i'm making myself a cup of greek coffee laila's going to do the taste test how is it great is it soft yeah it's soft it's crunchy it smells amazing in the house i hope you guys give this recipe a try all the exact measurements are in the description box down below and on the website www.dimitra's dishes dot com get some butter and jam out to serve this with you could also top it with chocolate the ultimate tureki checklist and guide is also on the blog so i'll make sure i'll post that down below and let me know again if you guys have any comments or questions i'm losing my train of thought because leila is it that good she keeps saying anyway i'll be back here with another recipe thank you guys so much yes

Channel: Dimitra's Dishes

Views: 26,447

Rating: 4.9661493 out of 5

Keywords: cooking show, greek food, greek recipes, Dimitra Khan, euro bakery and cafe, easy recipes

Id: UuMW1YN-yXU

Length: 17min 24sec (1044 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021