Hefezopf
German Sweet Bread
In this video I will show you a recipe for a sweet German bread named Hefezopf. Germans love this moist and chewy yeast bread for breakfast, spread with butter or with butter and jam. It is also very popular to have it at 4 pm at the traditional “German coffee hour”.
German Sweet Bread
Ingredients
Dough:
- 4 cups flour
- 1 cup warm milk
- 1 tbsp. yeast
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 5 tbsp. soft butter
- ½ tsp. pure almond extract optional
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup water or apple cider
Topping:
- 1 egg
- 1 Pinch of salt
- 1 Pinch of sugar
- 2 tbsp. slivered almonds
Instructions
- Soak raisins in water or apple cider.
- Add flour to a stand mixer bowl.
- Heat milk to luke warm and dissolve yeast and sugar in it.
- Cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
- Add almond extract and egg - whisk briefly.
- Pour the milk mixture to the flour, add soft butter and salt.
- Knead everything briefly to a soft dough.
- If you like raisins add them while kneading.
- Cover again with a kitchen towel and let raise for 2 hours
- or until dough doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
- Remove dough from the bowl and knead briefly.
- Braid the dough and place on a with parchment paper lined baking sheet.
- Whisk the egg with sugar and salt.
- Brush braided bread with it and sprinkle with slivered almonds.
- Let rise for about 30 minutes.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
