Easter marks the end of Lent, so there's sweet Easter bread for breakfast. But the recipes vary from country to country.
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00:01Easter is one of the most widely celebrated Christian festivals in Europe.
00:06Often colored eggs are accompanied by sweet Easter bread.
00:10Once Lent is over, people can dig into the rich and tasty dishes.
00:15For the Easter, Italians bake the Colombo Pasquale, the English serve up hot cross buns
00:21and the Bulgarians bake the Kozinak.
00:24My grandmother loved kneading Kozinak by hand.
00:29We bake Kozinak every year.
00:31I buy it.
00:32I buy a delicious, wonderful Kozinak from the bakery.
00:37In this bakery near Bulgaria's capital, Sofia, they know very well how to make it.
00:42It's a very difficult ritual bread because it takes a long time to make the rich dough with
00:48many ingredients.
00:49Lots of waiting, love and effort.
00:52A good leavened dough is the basis of every Easter bread.
00:58including the Bulgarian Kozinak.
01:01But the way it's made varies in different cultures.
01:09In my family, we always made Kozinak with lard, butter and of course oil.
01:15So we have three types of fat.
01:20This makes the dough extremely rich and the Kozinak very airy.
01:31It takes several hours to make a really good yeast dough.
01:38To get a beautifully layered Kozinak, we need to give it time to rest, but also to knead it very well.
01:47A Kozinak may be braided or rolled out and folded over various fillings.
01:56In Bulgaria, Kozinak is traditionally made with raisins, but in my region we have a traditional
02:06filling it with plum jam.
02:09This makes it even better.
02:11So today we'll make some Kozinak with this jam, which I barely managed to get from my mother.
02:18After the dough has been filled and folded into shape, it goes into the oven for about 30 minutes,
02:23or until it's golden brown.
02:26After making Kozinaks all day Saturday, in the evening I have them blessed in church.
02:33We circle the church three times with a candle lit from the holy fire.
02:37I bring the flame home for good health, and the day after Easter Sunday, we enjoy the Kozinak at lunch.
02:45In Poland the Easter bread is called Hauka.
02:48In this Warsaw bakery too, the dough is kneaded and left to rise for hours.
02:54Just one ingredient is absolutely essential to the Polish version.
03:00This is the Easter bread, and we've got to celebrate this beautiful holiday properly, so
03:04we add a few handfuls of dark chocolate.
03:10We'll bake a Hauka with four strips, so we'll need four rolls of dough.
03:19A Hauka can be braided together with two, four or six strips.
03:29Some brave souls can even braid twelve strips together.
03:35Before and after baking, the Hauka is brushed with egg yolk.
03:46Then it's glazed with chocolate.
03:49The Hauka we make together is a wonderful symbol of Easter.
03:53It rises with our own yeast, just like nature comes back to life at Easter time.
03:59In Greece, the Easter holiday is inconceivable without tsureki.
04:05We start eating as soon as Lent ends.
04:09We don't wait a moment.
04:10Of course we eat tsureki.
04:12I'll go to my grandmother's to make it.
04:14On Holy Thursday we dye the eggs, and from Tuesday or Wednesday we start making the tsureki.
04:20What's special about the Easter bread that this bakery north of Athens makes is the typical
04:27Greek seasonings like the bitter, resinous gum of the mastic tree, the bitter sweet matalep,
04:33and some fresh orange zest.
04:35Tsureki is also braided.
04:37For us Christians, the braid is not only the visual part, but also symbolizes the crucifixion of Christ.
04:45That's why as we join the two wicks, the shape of the cross is formed.
04:52So let's continue with the braid.
04:56These are just a few examples of the unique Easter specialties that bring families together,
05:01create cherished memories, and make the holiday truly special.