Bulgarian Easter bread kozunak

Each Eastern European culture has many dishes traditionally served for the Easter holiday season. Generally speaking Easter is preceded by a period of fasting which culminates in a veritable feast on Easter Sunday. The Bulgarian Easter bread kozunak (козунак) is made from a rich dough not unlike challah that is a treat and indeed a reward for the austere eating that is supposed to come before the sumptuous holiday repast.

Kozunak is a sweet, eggy bread, usually braided, sometimes decorated with almonds or alcohol-soaked raisins, and often baked with a colored Easter egg on top. Bulgarian Easter egg decorating tradition dictates that you begin with a red egg before using other colors, at least in some homes. I’ll be using a red decorated egg to adorn my kozunak here.

This recipe makes one loaf but you could double it to make more, though I warn you it’s a lot to handle in the single size. My recipe calls for 2.2 pounds (one kg) of flour–that’s about 8 cups of flour or half a five-pound bag. It also has six eggs and two sticks of butter so as I mentioned, it’s quite rich. My recipe is based on one in a cookbook I purchased in Bulgaria in 1994 by Dimitur Mantov called 333 рецепти: Ястия за всеки ден, Ястия за всеки празник (333 Recipes: Dishes for every day, Dishes for every holiday).

Jump to Recipe

Cookbooks from Eastern Europe, at least the ones I’ve obtained from Russia, Bulgaria, and Czechia, sometimes only give you the broad outline of a recipe, the ingredients and a few of the important considerations. They’re not very descriptive of the steps or how things should look and feel. And often there are no photographs to illustrate either the steps or the final product. So I’ve consulted several other kozunak recipes to fill in the gaps but I’ll stick with Mantov’s ingredient list and basic outline for authenticity.

A trip to the countryside

I’ve always wanted to connect to my Bulgarian relatives. While living in Bulgaria I took the opportunity to do some exploring to see if I could find any. I knew Kopilovtsi (Копиловци) was the name of my great-grandfather’s village. It was very early days of the internet–I’m not even sure there were searchable maps online in those days anyway–so I bought a paper map and carefully scanned it from top to bottom with my finger to find the village. I was in luck. Sorta. Turns out there are two Kopilovtsis! (The one I visited sits between the T and E of Kyustendil (Кюстендил) on the map below, far left side south-west of the capital Sofia).

I decided to try the village that was the easiest to get to from Sofia, where I lived. I convinced my American friend Amy to go on an adventure with me so we planned a day trip by bus to a remote village near Kyustendil. She asked me how I was going to locate my relatives once I was in the village, even with my knowledge of Bulgarian. It was unlikely I’d be able to find a public records office or library in the countryside. I told her, I’m going to get off the bus and ask the first person I see to direct me to the oldest person in the village. I figured that if my grandfather from a small village in the mountains had made it to America, his name might still be remembered almost a hundred years later.

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So on a spring morning just after Easter, Amy and I took the bus to Kyustendil and then another bus to Kopilovtsi. (Incidentally this Kopilovtsi made international news in 2018 when a cow from a local farm wandered across the border into neighboring Serbia—a non-EU country—and was sentenced to death upon her return). When Amy and I arrived in the lovely village, we stepped off the bus and just started walking down the street. I asked the first passerby who was the oldest resident and where I might find them. It was a small enough town that everyone knew everyone so he knew just where to send me. Unfortunately I no longer remember the name he gave me but his directions led us to a wonderful family and a surprising Easter feast.

My first kozunak

The day we arrived in Kopilovtsi was Easter Monday and we had been directed to the home of a very warm, gracious family. When I knocked on the door of the house, a middle-aged woman and her daughter answered. I told the woman who I was looking for and why I was there. She said, “You want to meet my mother-in-law, please come in. She’s out in the courtyard.” They led us through the front room of the house past a table laden with so many foods, including Bulgarian Easter bread kozunak!

In the courtyard was an elderly lady wearing an apron and kerchief, sitting at a bench picking through a pile of dried red peppers. I introduced myself and explained my situation. I told her I was looking for relatives of my great-grandfather who had emigrated to the United States shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Our family name had been transliterated upon his arrival at the Port of Galveston so I was not certain of the exact Bulgarian pronunciation (it could be one of two or three possibilities). I tried them all.

“No,” the old woman said, “your grandfather is not from this village. If anyone had made it to America we would remember. No one has ever gone to America from here.” At least that’s the gist of what she said. Under the best of circumstances it can be hard to understand older people in a foreign country; add to that her country dialect and the details of what she said to me were almost lost. Her daughter-in-law added excitedly, “Don’t worry. We can be your Bulgarian family!”

The whole family was so friendly and inquisitive. They invited us to stay and eat from the Easter feast. That was the first time I had kozunak and probably a half dozen other firsts. Eventually we had to leave to catch our return bus. So I left without meeting any relatives yet having made some really great memories. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to visit the other Kopilovtsi before my return to the States. But now I know if I ever have the chance to return which village to go to next!

Putting together the kozunak Easter bread recipe

The complete Bulgarian Easter bread kozunak recipe is here. Let’s look at how it gets created, step by step. It’s important to start with room temperature ingredients so gather them all before you get started. Weigh or measure them out at the start so you can add them effortlessly as you go along. I converted the metric measurements in the original recipe to US volume and weight equivalents.

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First we are going to activate or proof (some prefer “prove”) the yeast. Warm the milk and use a few tablespoons of it together with a pinch of salt to dissolve the yeast. It doesn’t really matter what kind of yeast you use. Most people have instant or active dry at home; either one is fine. Just make sure it’s fresh–that’s what this step is designed to do anyway.

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Meanwhile sift the flour and salt together into a bowl or onto a sheet of parchment. My recipe doesn’t specify the type of flour. In my dough I used a mixture of about 20% white whole wheat and 80% bread flour. If you’re only using one type of store-bought flour you could skip sifting. I’m doing it to combine the two types well and because my flour was compacted, having been sent through the mail.

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I could have used 100% all-purpose flour in this recipe. I think using all bread flour in this soft, rich dough might have been a mistake but the whole wheat will mitigate the strength of the gluten in the bread flour so I was comfortable trying a combination. The resulting texture bore this out as evidenced below.

Next mix the 5 whole eggs and egg white from the sixth egg into the cooled milk. Add the sugar, lemon zest and vanilla and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. You could use a mixer for this if you like but I just used a whisk. I didn’t have a fresh lemon on hand so I used dried grated lemon peel instead. You could add some nutmeg or other spice to the liquid at this point. I broke the eggs into a clear glass before adding to the milk because it’s difficult to see a rogue white piece of shell in milk. The glass helps me see I’m only adding egg to the mix.

Next most traditional recipes instruct you to mix the liquid into the flour and after you’ve got a workable dough to mix the butter in with your hands. This seems like an unnecessary–and messy–complication so I added the melted butter to the liquid mixture before blending with the flour. This created a lot more liquid to deal with initially but if you do it by adding liquid a little at a time it’s quite manageable.

Remove 2 cups of flour and set aside. Pile the rest of the flour on a clean, dry counter and make a well in the center.

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Pour a third of the liquid into the well and bring flour from the sides up into the liquid with your hands. A bowl scraper really helps in this step. Work quickly to prevent lava flows of egg mixture from running away from you.

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Make a new well in the center of the pile and repeat. Sprinkle some of the reserved flour onto the liquid and continue gathering up the flour in the center, pressing to form a dough. Repeat this for the last third of egg mixture.

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Knead the shaggy mixture with your hands until it starts to form a dough ball. Resist the temptation to wash your hands whenever you are working with bread dough. If your hands are sticking, dust them with some flour and resist pushing down below the dough surface with your fingers. Pat the dough into a rough oval facing you lengthwise. Pull the top half of the dough towards you and fold it over the bottom half. Push away from yourself with the heels of your hands; turn the dough a quarter turn counterclockwise and again pull the top half down over the bottom. Repeat this again and again, working quickly and you’ll soon have a cohesive, smooth dough ball. Continue kneading for about ten minutes until the dough is smooth and bounces back when you press on it with your finger.

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[Note: let me just say right now I think all of this could have been done in a mixer with dough attachment or in a bread machine on the knead cycle. But we’re going for “authenticity” here!].

Now it’s time to let the dough rest and rise. Spray a bowl with non-stick cooking spray or grease with oil. Place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat. Spray plastic wrap with non-stick cooking spray and gently place over the top of the dough. I spread the plastic over the top of the bowl, spray and then flip the plastic over. Only loosely cover the dough so that it has room to rise. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel–hey, it’s tradition.

The towel will also keep drafts out and help your dough keep a nice warm environment. Fortunately I have an oven with a proof setting but if you don’t, put the bowl inside your oven (turned off), a microwave or another place where it can rest and rise undisturbed. It’ll rise about 90 minutes or until doubled. Then you’ll deflate it, reshape and let it rise again another 60-90 minutes.

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After the second rise, place the dough on the counter, gently deflate it and divide it into three equal pieces. (Weighing them helps you divide evenly). Roll each piece into a long rope about an inch or so in diameter. Start with both hands in the center of the piece and move your hands apart as you roll. Keep repeating to make the strand longer and longer until you get it to the right thickness. Line each rope lengthwise facing you and pinch them together at the top. Now loosely braid the strands being careful not to stretch them or pack them too tightly together or your loaf won’t rise evenly.

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Braid the strands all the way down to the bottom, pinch the ends together and curve them into a circle. Pinch the ends together where they join and tuck underneath. Shape the loaf gently with your hands to make a nice symmetrical shape. Loosely cover and set somewhere warm to rise. This time I placed mine on top of the proofing oven that was set to a very low temperature. It rose there in about 60 minutes.

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Before baking your dough you can decorate it with colored Easter eggs in the traditional way. You can prepare your colored eggs during the first two rising times. If you’re going to bake the bread with eggs, let the eggs spend some time on the dough during the third rise so they nestle into the dough a bit or else they’ll pop off when the dough springs in the heat of the oven.

I wanted my eggs to be a very deep red so I let them soak in dye overnight. I also wanted them very dry by the time they went on the dough so they wouldn’t discolor the bread (they still did a little bit). For glossy eggs, coat them in oil before baking. Traditional recipes call for uncooked colored eggs. If you bake them uncooked they come out still a little soft and runny, like a poached egg. I prefer my cooked eggs a little firmer so I parboiled the eggs before coloring for a few minutes.

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This bread bakes at a slightly lower temperature than most. Preheat the oven to 300°F while you glaze it with an egg wash. Use the reserved egg yolk mixed with a little water or milk and gently brush it all over the surface of the loaf. Now is when you can sprinkle with slivered almonds or sparkling sugar if you desire. I kept mine plain–the eggs were adornment enough for me. The result was a beautiful and very tasty, lightly sweet bread. I compare it to Hawaiian bread in taste and texture. You could ice it and make it even sweeter or just enjoy it plain as I have.

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Bulgarian Easter bread kozunak recipe