We call it bread because it is technically a bread but this is really a tradition in our house that is something akin to a cinnamon roll only… BETTER. The dough is sweet and soft and just melts in your mouth…I’m getting hungry right now just thinking about it. First you make your typical bread-dough letting it rise, then you make it look like a tree and frost it. Sounds easy but it does end up being slightly trickier than that. Hopefully I can post enough pics today to de-complicate it. Yield: 8 Trees
Dough Recipe:
1/2 Cup Water
2 Cups Milk
1 Cup Sugar
9 Tsp Yeast
1 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs
2 Tsp salt
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
8-9 Cups Flour (Bread Flour if you have it, white all-purpose if you don’t)
Filling:
1/2 Cup Butter, Melted
2 cups Brown Sugar
4 Tbsp Cinnamon
Frosting:
In a microwave-able bowl, put the oil, milk, water and sugar and stir. Microwave this for about 2-3 minutes. Pour into large mixing bowl (or into your Bosch or Kitchen-Aid mixer). Put half of the flour on top of the liquids. Add the eggs and the yeast and start mixing until you have a nice slurry-consistency mixture. Add the Salt, Vanilla and then add the rest of the flour one cup at a time until you get a beautiful slightly sticky and soft dough. Remove from bowl, drizzle a bit of vegetable oil into the bowl, add dough and turn to coat. Let rise for 2 hours. Punch down. Divide into 8 equal parts.
Take each piece of dough and roll into a triangle. I’m using “triangle” in the loosest sense of the word. This isn’t the time to be a perfectionist. Mine always look awful. You can fix it later on.
This is what my “triangles” look like.
Then take your triangle and place it on a piece of foil. For the filling, brush each triangle with melted butter. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle on about 1/2 cup of filling. Add nuts if desired. (I don’t, because the hubs is not a fan)
It should now look like this:
Great photography, I know. </End Sarcasm>
Fold in half, and slice two vertical lines at the bottom to cut the “trunk. Cut horizontal lines up each side for branches.
Now, start at the top and twist each branch upwards and pinch it to the branch above. This is the time to try and make it look like a tree. Now it should look like this:
BEAUTIFUL, right???
Then let them rise for about 25-30 minutes while you pre-heat your stove to 375 degrees.
It should now look nice and fat, like so:
Bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges turn golden brown.
Let each tree cool for about 5-10 minutes and then frost with a pastry brush to completely cover with frosting. Sprinkle with colored sugar or other decorative sprinkles.
Today is the 23rd, with a little luck and probably a lot of vigilant hand slapping, these will make it to be our Christmas Morning breakfast along with a mug of hot cocoa. YUM! Provecho Y’all!!