Eggless Slovak Paska Bread

One of the great ways to beat the stress is Bread baking for me.. But I never got a chance to try this delicious Bread until now but I wanted to try it as soon as Gayathri announced it for this month's Eggless Baking Group. Slovak Paska is an Eastern European Bread during Easter and is loaded with butter and eggs. This is also a very decorative bread.. With this recipe I got one 9x5 loaf and one 5x3 loaf..

Ingredients
Bread Flour - 3 - 4 cups (Can use All purpose also)
Milk - 1 cup + 1 table spoon + for milk wash
Sugar - 3 table spoons + 1 tea spoon
Salt - 2/3 tea spoon
Butter - 1/2 cup
Instant Dry Yeast - 2 1/4 tea spoon (1 packet)
Curd - 1/4 cup
Baking Soda - 1/8 tea spoon

Method
Warm the milk until it reaches 110 - 120 degrees F. Basically luke warm (touch with your finger and it should be warm and bearable and not hot)
To 1/2 cup milk, add yeast, 1 tea spoon sugar and mix it well. Keep this covered for 5 minutes or until frothy and foamy.
In a sauce pan, add the remaining milk, butter, remaining sugar and salt.. Heat this until butter melts. Set aside to cool to luke warm (110 - 120 F)
To the mixing bowl, add curd, baking soda, milk butter mixture and mix well
Now add the yeast solution and 1 cup of flour and mix it. Add 1/2 cup of flour at a time until it forms a soft, elastic and smooth dough. It should be non-sticky.

Grease a big bowl and place the dough in the bowl and allow it to become double in size. It took about 45 minutes for me. But it depends on the temperature. So it can take up to 2 hours.
Prepare the loaf pan - grease the loaf pan and arrange parchment like a sling. This will be helpful to take the bread out with the help of the sling from the pan. Also grease the parchment also well. Set aside until use.
Divide the dough into 3 portions. Arrange 2/3 portion in the bottom of the loaf pan and spread it to cover the entire area
To the other portion, split into 2 and make braids, roses or rope decorations and keep it on the loaf pan
Cover it and allow it to rise for another 45 minutes
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C

Give a generous milk wash to the risen bread and bake it in the preheated oven for 30 - 40 minutes until the top is golden.
Remove from oven and immediately remove from the pan with the help of the sling and allow it to cool on the cooling rack
Slice when it cooled completely and enjoy the very soft and delicious bread!!!


Sending this to YeastSpotting!, ONLY BAKES and Pari's page, Spotlight – Continental