COZONAC- the Romanian traditional recipe

Virtual mobility 6th - 13th December 2021

ROMANIAN TRADITIONAL RECIPE
OF COZONAC WITH WALNUTS

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Cozonac is a traditional Romanian cake, but also a Bulgarian dessert (kozunak), similar to an Italian pastry called "panettone". Romanians usually eat this kind of cake at weddings, baptisms, Easter and Christmas.

Talking about the Romanian cake (that foreigners consider a sort of yeast bread) called COZONAC, there is a huge variety of recipes.
Every historical region has a recipe, just as every family has one, handed down from generation to generation. Almost every housewife has a recipe for traditional cozonac, inherited from family or taken from friends, neighbours or a colleague.

In terms of shape, cozonacii (plural of cozonac) can be straight or round, plain or plaited.

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In terms of filling, we distinguish between plain or filled with walnut, poppy, dried fruit, or mixtures.

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At Easter, the traditional cozonac is filled with cheese and this variety is called pască.

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fresh cheese with eggs

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Pasca

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In Moldova, it is popular to prepare the round and tall (called "babe"), unfilled cakes, whose composition contains up to 20 eggs, butter, grated lemon or/and orange peel and raisins. In Ardeal they are mostly made with poppy seeds and a German-influenced version with burnt sugar, lots of butter and large chopped nuts.

PREPARATION TIME: 3 hours

COOKING TIME: 45-50 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

·        1 kg of sifted flour in order to obtain a fluffy pastry
·        50 g of fresh yeast or 14 g of dry yeast
·        350 ml (max. 400 ml) of warm milk
·        250 g of sugar
·        4 eggs
·        about 150 ml of sunflower oil and 100 g of melted butter
·        3 sachets of vanilla sugar or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or vanilla seeds
·        grated zest of 2 lemons and an orange
·        15 g salt (weighed!) or 1 teaspoon of salt

Filling:

·        300 g of coloured
Turkish delight
·        150 g of chopped
walnuts
·        100 g of sugar
·        50 g of cocoa

STEP 1

First mix the fresh yeast in a small bowl along with a teaspoon of sugar, 100 ml of milk and about 1 spoon of flour. Mix these ingredients and left aside to activate, so wait for 10 minutes. If you have dried yeast, do the same with it: pour 100 ml of warm milk into the bowl, add a teaspoon of sugar, sprinkle the dried yeast and stir. Sprinkle with a little flour and wait 10 min because the mixture needs to swell.

STEP 2

In a large bowl put the 4 whole eggs. There are women who separate egg whites and yolks and then beat them separately. On top of them add the rest of the sugar as well as the vanilla extract/vanilla sugar or vanilla seeds. Turned on the mixer and beat the eggs for 5 minutes until they become light in color.

STEP 3

In a large bowl put the above mixture containing the yeast, add the rest of the flour, the eggs, salt and a few drops of rum extract and mixt everything by hand rather than using a mixer.

The dough is sticky but will become smooth after further kneading.

It’s time to pour little by little the oil and the melted butter until they are well incorporated into the dough. This kneading stage takes about 20 minutes and it demands a physical effort being very important because the gluten develops in the flour by giving elasticity to the dough.

When the dough is not sticky anymore, it’s time to let it in a warm place in order to rise for 1 hour.